Light shed on AIG as a political cash cow

[steven johnson]

The initial allowance of bonuses for AIG employees in the bailout bill gets a bit sticky when you look at the campaign contributions of AIG employees.

Congressional Democrats vowed Tuesday to strip away the $165 million in bonuses that American International Group paid to its executives with taxpayer bailout money. In doing so, they threatened to bite one of the many hands that feed the Washington campaign money machine.

Dodd has accepted $280,238 in campaign cash from AIG’s political committee and employees in the last 20 years...Schumer has accepted $111,875 from AIG donors over two decades...Baucus collected $90,000 from those connected to the insurance giant that has received more than $170 billion in federal bailout funds...Obama was one of four people who ran for the presidency who ranked in the top five of recipients of AIG employee and political committee donations over the last two decades. He pulled in $107,332, mostly for his presidential race.

The AIG contributions had a distinctly New York cast to them, with 10 prominent politicians from the state each receiving more than $10,000 from the company or its employees. On top of that, former U. S. Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato, RN. Y., signed on as an AIG lobbyist in 2005. Federal records show that D’Amato’s lobbying firm racked up $52,000 in expenses lobbying for the company, a pittance compared with the $47.73 million AIG spent on lobbying over the last five years.

http://www.buffalonews.com/180/story/611215.html

[BR_Parkway]

1. Maybe there's finally enough outrage to end corporate donations

Anyone got a pen handy, we need to amend the Constitution to get rid of the wrongly implied personhood that SCOTUS gave them

[dkf]

2. Does that mean anyone that works for a corporation can't contribute?

I guess that would save me quite a bit of money.

[notadmblnd]

3. So the banks were engaging in a bit of extortion of Congress?

pay us the money or you get no more cash contributions to your re-election campaigns? So Dodd, worried, acquiesced?