Chris can’t be Chris without dropping the obligatory ‘Fox News/Rush Limbaugh…’ bomb.

I want nothing to do with formulaic arguments that I’ve heard countless times before, each time less and less compelling.

I will take whatever small advantages I can get. Chris is a tough opponent. I don’t often get the chance to say “I told you so” in a discussion with him, so I have to take every opportunity that presents itself to me. However, I will never be satisfied with the level of responsibility he assigns to Democrats like Barney Frank for their culpability in this financial mess (Fannie / Freddie, etc). So I’ve given up fighting about that, because as we all know, Democrat corruption is all the fault of the GOP and George W. Bush.

I love how Chris refuses to see the obvious pattern emerging whereby guys like Chris Dodd and the other friends of Freddie and Fannie are the cause of our problems, not the solution.

His original amendment did not allow bonuses, but a change to the amendment did. Yesterday Dodd denied allowing the change but finally admitted that he did change the amendment with pressure from the White House to do so.

Terrible mess if you ask me.

I didn’t mention Bush’s Treasury Department in my original post. I didn’t need to. It’s common knowledge that all these bailouts started under the Bush Administration, and I opposed each and every bailout that happened at the time it happened. I can give you lists of posts in opposition to the bailouts, but you don’t need them because you know what my position has always been.

As far as salary caps, I still can’t say I am inclined to support them for CEOs. I remain opposed to government interference in private companies, although I understand why it happens to the ones that are stupid enough to take government cash. However, I agree with Kit Bond. Here’s a longer version of it from your link:

“The worst thing we can do is tell businesses how to run themselves. Congress has a pretty bad track record. If you you look at our collective jdugement, all 535 of us in our wisdom can’t run government very well. (We) sure can’t run business.

“As far as capping CEO pay for people who really loused up, we ought to fire them. We’re not going to fire them, but the boards of directors ought to fire them; that’s what they did in Sweden. They need to get rid of these people, not cap their pay at $400,000. They aren’t worth that. Bring in people who can do the job.”

That’s a very defensible position. Fire the CEOs who screw up. That’s a better form of accountability than salary caps, at least in my civilian opinion.

No where in your original post do you mention that it was ultimately the responsibility not of congress but Bush’s treasury to implement TARP. So if Congress knew about the bonuses, and I’m sure they did, it was at the advice of Bush’s treasury that TARP was good to go.

It was actually Dodd’s amendment that would have prevented bonuses but Republicans were busy fighting against caps trying their hardest to prove their American capitalistic credentials:

KIT BOND: “The worst thing we can do is tell businesses how to run themselves. Congress has a pretty bad track record. If you you look at our collective judgment, all 535 of us in our wisdom can’t run government very well. (We) sure can’t run business.”

The easiest and quickest way for Congress to keep the bonuses from being paid would have been to institute caps, something the GOP strongly opposed. If congress failed, it did so with huge Republican support.

If you haven’t excused Republicans, then where is the mention that it was Bush’s treasury who implemented TARP? And where are mentions about Republicans opposing salary caps, which was the best way to ward off any bonuses? Maybe if the GOP wasn’t so focused on name calling and trying to find out new ways to question someone’s patriotism, they would be able to focus on making informed decisions for which they earn their big bucks.

The Dems do indeed have a majority, but when TARP was passed the Republicans still controlled the White House. There is no way Bush would have signed anything that contained salary caps. Plus the Dem majority was much smaller in September than it is now. Did the Dems in control fail with TARP? ABSOLUTELY! I’ve been saying that from the beginning.

I haven’t excused Republicans of partial blame on this. You know that.

Eventually the Dems will have to take responsibility for their own choices. Oh boo hoo…the mean Republicans could call them socialists (or my new preferred term – the anti-capitalists). Sometimes they seem to forget that they are the majority and can pass whatever the heck they want to pass without the Republicans. At this point I have zero sympathy for any whiny Congressional Democrats.

LIDDY: “Yes, everything we do, we do in partnership with the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is at our board meetings and our compensation committee meetings, at our various meetings on strategy and they have the ability to weigh in — either yea or nay — on anything that we decide.”

and it goes on…

Could congress had paid more attention? Absolutely! But any effort at limiting CEO pay would have met stiff GOP resistance, and been called socialist by the Repubs.

What do you mean Congress knew about these bonuses beforehand? It was the Bush administration that carried out the bailout, not congress. The Treasury Department was in charge of presenting to congress the terms of the bailout, the fault first lies with the administration. Does that exempt congress? Nope, but unlike your numerous links blaming Dems and Chris Dodd, it was Sen. Dodd’s amendment that actually restricted compensation (blocked bonuses).

The Dodd amendment specifically states:

TARP recipients shall “meet appropriate standards for executive compensation and corporate governance”: “a prohibition on such TARP recipient paying or accruing any bonus, retention award, or incentive compensation during the period that the obligation is outstanding to at least the 25 most highly-compensated employees, or such higher number as the Secretary may determine is in the public interest with respect to any TARP recipient.”

It was the conference committee that modified Dodd’s amendment, the committee assigned to reconcile the different versions of the House and Senate bills. Dodd’s amendment did not restrict language that allowed these bonuses to happen. In other words, Dodd did not put in the stimulus bill any “requirement that these contractual obligations must be paid.”

It was also Republicans who were against salary caps of any kind. Caps could have easily prevented the bonuses:

Mitch MCCONNELL: “I really don’t want the government to take over these businesses and start telling them everything about what they can do. […] We have to resist the temptation to basically dictate to these businesses how to run every aspect of their operation.”

Dick SHELBY: “It should be up to the board of directors of a private corporation to set the compensation of an executive; it shouldn’t be Congress’s role.”

Blaming the Dems is partially right, I don’t deny that at all. The GOP is far from the moral crusaders in this, however.