if you don't want to read my last post, this says the same thing a lot faster...

...am I missing something?

I was honestly embarrassed by my country today.  Maybe it's not just today, but it's been building up over the past few weeks and finally today it just made it to the stage of embarrassment.  Either way, today I was truly embarrassed by the feigned outrage that took place on Capitol Hill, and in my opinion every American should be as well.  It shouldn't matter what side of the political aisle you may find yourself sitting on, and to (hopefully) show that I'm going to attempt to write this particular post without using names or R's or D's.

Several weeks ago, congress passed a stimulus bill that was supposed to help jump start the economy - whether or not it will actually work is another debate entirely - but suffice it to say that it was so important that this bill be passed immediately to delay impending economic disaster, no one in congress seemed to have read it.

Now, we come to find out that no one (democrat or republican) made sure that companies that received "bailout" money from this plan or the previous bailout plan could use the money to pay bonuses to employees.  This comes to every one's attention because AIG, an insurance company for banks in American and throughout the world, payed $165,000,000 in bonuses.

Here is where the feigned outrage comes in - today (and yesterday) we had to listen to senators lambasting representatives from AIG (at least one of which has come back out of retirement to try to help save AIG, is not taking a salary, and was in retirement when the current contracts in question were written) about their greed and how they are cheating the American people.

Oh wait, did I miss the outrage over congressmen who didn't do their jobs and write a bill that would have prevented this?  Or maybe I missed the outrage about the amount of money that we've given AIG alone so far already and how this just shows the mismanagement of TARP and bailout funds that is bound to happen?

Congress has given AIG over $170,000,000,000 of taxpayer money in the last few months.  They are using $165,000,000 of it for bonuses.  Do the math, America - this is 0.097 PERCENT of what we've given AIG so far.  

Maybe it's all the zeros that throw people off.  A million dollars is a lot to the average person.  So allow me to put this in terms that maybe any American can understand.  If you're an average person making $50,000 a year, this would be like you spending $48.50 to take your family to dinner for a birthday celebration.  And correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're a family of 4 that's a pretty darn cheap dinner!  

Am I missing something here?  Where is the outrage over giving billions and billions of dollars to whoever congress seems to think deserves it!?

Don't get me wrong, none of this is by any means a defense of AIG paying out bonuses.  There's two points I'm trying to make:

1) The same congressmen who just couldn't take the time to read the bill they signed are now furious that AIG is taking advantage of bill to honor its contracts.  Taking advantage might even be the wrong phrase to use here, since a certain senator (I promised not to use names or even R's and D's) apparently put that language into the bill on purpose to protect AIG's right to do exactly this!  But now, since Americans are justifiably upset about this provision, congress just today passed a bill saying they would tax 90% of any bonuses paid to these employees.  Isn't this extremely self-righteous behavior for a bunch of congressmen, and shouldn't the American people demand better from their leaders?

2) If Americans are so upset about $165,000,000, why aren't they upset about over 1000 times that going to a single company, and many many times more being given to whoever congress seems to think deserves it?

I really thought that today's display of outrage at AIG from our leaders on Capitol Hill was ridiculous and a complete show for their constituents - and that embarrassed me.

...and I haven't even mentioned the ignorance of foreign relations demonstrated by Obama and his administration a few weeks ago...