Sen. Snowe just on msnbc said the admin. was resistant to the SNOWE-WYDEN Amendment...

[polichick]

...but she doesn't know which Congresspeople actually stripped it from the bill.

For those not familiar with the Snowe-Wyden Amendment:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8268092&mesg_id=8268092

[grasswire]

1. Wyden said last night it "disappeared" from his bill

...at the last minute. The bill had bipartisan support.

Who stripped it from the bill?

[polichick]

2. That's what I've been trying to find out all day...

Spoke to people in Snowe's, Wyden's and Casey's office ~ nobody knows.

Chris Matthews announced that he's researching it too.

[biopowertoday]

3. you will find this helpful..................

Treasury Attempts to “Blame Dodd” for AIG Bonuses
By: Jane Hamsher Tuesday March 17, 2009 1:15 pm


As Geithner tries to get out of the way of the AIG bonus train wreck, it looks like the designated sin eater is going to be Chris Dodd:

The administration official said the Treasury Department did its own legal analysis and concluded that those contracts could not be broken. The official noted that even a provision recently pushed through Congress by Senator Christopher J. Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, had an exemption for such bonus agreements already in place.

So Treasury says Chris Dodd did this? In a word. . . no.

What they're talking about is a clause in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which was signed into law by President Obama on Feburuary 17, and places limits on executive compensation for TARP recipients. According to the white paper obtained by FDL written by AIG to explain its legal justification, the $1.2 billion in bonuses they say they are contractually obligated to pay in 2009 are exempt from these limits:

remainder here: http://firedoglake.com/2009/03/17/treasury-attempts-to-blame-dodd-for-aig-bonuses/

[polichick]

4. Nora O'Donnell asked Snowe if she's spoken to Dodd about her amendment...

...but she hadn't ~ wonder why not.

[biopowertoday]

5. I have no idea.........

but perhaps there are a lot of bad feelings. Here is another post that fills in some gaps for me.



Washington knew AIG was preparing to pay bonuses


By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS,

Tue Mar 17, 9:04 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Cue the outrage. For months, the Obama administration and members of Congress have known that insurance giant AIG was getting ready to pay huge bonuses while living off government bailouts. It wasn't until the money was flowing and news was trickling out to the public that official Washington rose up in anger and vowed to yank the money back.



.....................

Around the same time, Congress and Obama's team were passing up an opportunity to put in place strict laws to revoke bonuses from recipients of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. In February, the Senate voted to add such a proposal to the economic recovery bill that cleared Congress, but in final closed-door talks on the measure, that provision was dropped in favor of limits that affect only future payments.

"There was a lot of lobbying against it and it died," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who proposed the measure with Republican Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine. He said Obama's team is sending mixed messages on what will and won't be tolerated on bonuses, with the president coming out strongly against excessive Wall Street rewards but top officials not following through.

"The president goes out and says this is not acceptable, and then some backroom deal gets cut to let these things get paid out anyway," Wyden said. "They need to put this to bed once and for all."........................

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090318/ap_on_go_pr_wh/aig_what_did_they_know ;_ylt=Anb503rUj04SRI4KffgLQBayFz4D

[polichick]

8. Wyden talked about this on Rachel Maddow's show last night - WHO lobbied against it??

[Clio the Leo]

6. lol, no, I find that to be highly incendiary and smelling of poo poo. NT

[polichick]

11. Well, you got part of it right - it definitely stinks!

[Clio the Leo]

7. exact quote:

"obviously if the administration had supported this initiative it would have been part of it. Rather, they came out with a modification that essentially watered it down..."

Well, "watered down" is in the eye of the beholder. That's a relative term.

Now, we're splitting hairs at this point but TO ME that doesn't exactly imply what your thread title does.

I think, until the admin. responding to these accusations, we need to be especially careful of accusing them of anything nefarious. ;)

[polichick]

9. delete

[polichick]

10. Actually the title was taken from the exact words Sen. Snowe spoke to Nora...

She said "the administration was resistant" ~ yes, we need to hear from them about now. Maybe it will be addressed tomorrow.

[Phx_Dem]

12. Snowe and Wyden are grandstanding just as much as every

other asshole on the Hill. If they were so concerned about their provision, why are we just now hearing about it? They never publically stated that the Administration or anyone was opposed to it. And they never mentioned that he had been removed -- probably because they didn't know because they didn't bother to check on it after the bill came out of conference.

If I had put a special provision in a bill, I'd be following it all along the way to see if it was still there and unaltered because everyone knows that things get added into and taken out of bills all the time. Standard practice.

Congress, collectively, is responsible for ALL the laws. They are responsible for regulating and deregulating laws. That's why they're all screaming so loud -- they KNOW they're responsible along with Bush who signed the deregulating bills that created this fucking disaster. Not one of those assholes said boo when AIG got their first two bailout payments in Sept and Oct, as far as regulating bonuses or executive compensation.

Screaming "I told you so" like a bratty child doesn't get Snowe or Wyden off the hook, especially Snowe who did NOTHING in the way of oversight during the last 8 years. She went along to get along and now she's OUTRAGED! OUTRAGED I tell you!

They ALL need to STFU and start doing their jobs for a change.

[polichick]

13. At least they tried to put responsible measures in the bill - I give them...

...credit for that ~ and we deserve to know who stripped it because it'll tell us a lot about intent. From what we know so far, it seems people at Treasury were involved.

[Phx_Dem]

14. I gave them credit (and still do to some extent), but now they're

just grandstanding like everyone else. If their provision was so important -- and I think it was -- why didn't they follow through on it? They sure don't seem to have a problem following through now that it's too late.

[polichick]

15. It was removed in the final House-Senate Conference - there was nothing...

...more they could do ~ except tell people about it, which they have.

[demo dutch]

16. yes but who! someone knows the answer to that one

[polichick]

17. They don't know who - I called both offices today...

They're very frustrated.