fun & games on Capitol Hill

'"I warned them this would be met with an unprecedented level of outrage," [said] Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), the chairman of the banking committee and part of a group of senators who pressed Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to stop the bonuses....' (Washington Post)

'While the Senate was constructing the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. The provision, now called "the Dodd Amendment" by the Obama Administration provides an "exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009"--which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are now seeking to tax.' (Fox Business)

'In a comment aired this afternoon on WMT, an Iowa radio station, [Senator Charles] Grassley (R-Iowa) said: "The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards [the AIG executives would be] if they'd follow the Japanese model and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things--resign, or go commit suicide." (Politico)

Really, I'm not making this stuff up. Those are our Congressmen, the same who put $8,000,000,000 of earmarks into that $410,000,000,000 spending bill. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford