Monday, December 15, 2008

Oops! He Did it Again

Bush has left one more skid mark on his way out the door. And, in my opinion, it's a doozie.

Apparently, at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the $700 billion bailout that cut the legs out from under the provisions to set limits on executive compensation and provide penalties to companies that broke the rules. The change restricted the penalty to companies that received funds by selling assets to the government via auction. Since Paulson and the administration have decided to spend most of our money by simply giving it to ailing companies, this means that these companies have slipped through a mighty large loophole.

The best, make that worst, part is that Paulson was telling Congress that direct funding of companies was going to be rare and that most would receive their funding after auctioning assets. He tells them this while planning to do the opposite. None of the $335 BILLION dollars dished out by the government so far as gone through the auction process.

So, while you and I might complain about the outrageous executive "cash awards", bonuses or tax breaks, there appears that there is little if anything that can be done. I wasn't even aware of the practice of deducting compensation payments from a company's taxable income. Basically they get to give this money away to their executives and not count it as income. The provision, before it got screwed by BushCo, banned any deduction over $500,000, changed the tax code and allowed the IRS to impose penalties. But no more!

Essentially this little one line change to the law stripped it of any oversight capabilites.

Way to go Junior. Why don't you retire to Maine with Daddy and stay the hell out of Texas!

7 comments:

skyewriter said...

Just when you think the corruption, lies, and unethical behavior can't get any worse...

And "liberals" are the bad people? Give me an effing break.

skyewriter said...

PS:
On a scale of 1-10, how hard was it to change your template? I looked at the link you provided to where you found your new look; I tried on a couple and kept getting error messages.

Sidhe said...

Yuk! From now on I'm personally referring to the bailout as "the nightmare" or maybe even the "gift that keeps on giving."

No one wants him in Maine either...might I suggest Alaska with the lovely Sarah...

Stacy Hackenberg said...

Jess-

It was about a 7 or 8. I would suggest that you make a new blog and then work on the template in that one until you think you have it the way you like it. You can always delete the second blog when you're done. The first template I worked with was a real disaster but I learned a few important things from it. First, copy the html of any widgets on a word doc separate from your back-up. Include your blogroll addresses and any links you have as well. Then, if you're using a second basic blog that just has one of the basic Blogger templates, you can switch back and forth between new templates and the blogger one fairly easily until you find the one you like. Then you can transfer it to your existing blog, recreate all your widgets and voila! My experience was that it was best to delete the widgets and reinstall them from scratch. Some of the problems I had may be due to the fact that I was working on a Mac but I think the steps I mentioned should take care of any problems. If you should encounter a corrupt template that doesn't allow you to reload the previous one, it takes a few tries to get the old one up and running again. Let me know if you encounter that sticky wicket.

Chris said...

I don't get how that could happen...he just does whatever he wants to after it took practically an act of God to get it through Congress? Of course he's been doing this sort of stuff during his whole presidency! But this was one of the major rules of the bailout...to have some sort of regulation on the executive compensation...WTF?????

Anonymous said...

How about Jersey? My mom lives in Maine... She shouldn't have to take another one for the team.

Arizona Ranger said...

I was against the bailout to begin with. There should have been no bailing out companies of ANY sort that made irresponsible business decisions. We shouldn't be arguing over the fine print, but it took Democrat support to pass the thing.