RUSH: I keep trying to move on now from the bonus business, but, for crying out loud, folks, I can’t! I want to ask all of you in this audience and those of you who are new to this program a question: Way back last fall when all this bailout stuff started, I warned you. ‘This isn’t gonna work. This is not the way to do it. This is the government asserting control.’ We see now what a total mess all of this has become! Guess where we are now? We’ve got the administration, led by President Obama and his teleprompter. His teleprompter told him to say yesterday that these AIG executives are greedy and selfish, and now what? We’ve got death threats being phoned in on the AIG headquarters in New York, and all this time we’ve been told that it’s talk radio that incites this kind of hatred. ‘It’s Limbaugh and the little Limbaughs that create all of this animosity and anger and cause people to behave in ways that are uncivil,’ and the president’s own teleprompter is telling him to say that these executives are greedy and selfish — and this is inciting people to behavior that could lead to violence if their threats are acted out. This whole thing is a boondoggle! It is a mess, brought to you by the United States government led by Democrats. Charles ‘Chuck-U’ Schumer this afternoon on the Senate floor.
SCHUMER: My colleagues and I are sending a letter to Mr. Liddy informing him that he can go right ahead and tell these employees that are scheduled to get bonuses that they should voluntarily return them because if they don’t, we plan to virtually tax all of it. He should tell these employees if they don’t give the money back, we’ll put in place a new law that will allow us to tax these bonuses at a very high rate so that it’s returned to its rightful owners, the taxpayers. So for those of you who are getting these bonuses, be forewarned: You will not be getting to keep them.
RUSH: The hand, the soothing words of a compassionate, understanding government. Charles Chuck-U Schumer, from the state of New York, sending a letter to the government-installed CEO of AIG, demanding that the recipients of these bonuses give the money back or it’s going to be taxed at 100%. Again I must remind you, ladies and gentlemen, there is a law, the stimulus bill, and the stimulus bill has a limit on executive pay. But Christopher Dodd put an amendment that is now the law of the land that exempted bonuses from any limits on executive pay. So here you have Senator Schumer targeting individuals, threatening individuals. The United States government… This is on the heels of Dingy Harry Reid targeting me.
Now these people who are getting the bonuses are being singled out and personally targeted, by the United States Senate. No equal treatment under the law here! This is just a Stalinist-type, intimidating power grab — and the whole thing is a game. It is designed to distract you from the mess that the Democrat Party has created with these bailouts, that they have created with the stimulus bill, that they have created with the omnibus budget. It’s a mess, it is a cacophonic mess, and they have to do something to distract from it so they’re going after $165 million when bailouts are totaling over a trillion now, and they are utter failures. Every one of these bailouts has been a failure. It hasn’t accomplished anything. So you have to be distracted.
Oh, one more thing about Chris Dodd, before we get to what a retention bonus is. Senator Dodd — in addition to everything else that you know about him with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the subprime mortgage business, Senator Chris Dodd — was AIG’s largest single recipient of campaign donations during the 2008 election cycle. AIG donated $103,100, according to OpenSecrets.org, to Senator Dodd. One of AIG’s financial products’ largest offices is based in Connecticut. What this proves is that ‘you can lease Chris Dodd, but you can’t buy him.’ He’ll work for you as long as you do what he wants, but then when you turn around and embarrass him, why, he’s gonna come after you. I want you to listen to Chuck Schumer again. Here is a compassionate, understanding, traditional liberal Democrat.
SCHUMER: My colleagues and I are sending a letter to Mr. Liddy informing him that he can go right ahead and tell these employees that are scheduled to get bonuses that they should voluntarily return them because if they don’t, we plan to virtually tax all of it. He should tell these employees if they don’t give the money back, we’ll put in place a new law that will allow us to tax these bonuses at a very high rate so that it’s returned to its rightful owners, the taxpayers. So for those of you who are getting these bonuses, be forewarned: You will not be getting to keep them.
RUSH: By the way, if this ever did come to pass, you would not see your pocket swell at all with cash. You’re not going to ever see this money, if it ever does come back, and it’s chump change compared to the $93 billion that AIG gave to other banks. That is a real scandal, and that’s the one that’s being papered over and covered up — I told you about it yesterday — while everybody is being agitated about this.
Now, what is a retention bonus? The best way to explain a retention bonus is to say that a retention bonus is offered to an employee who is being laid off down the road in order to keep the employee, in order to retain the employee. When a company announces layoffs for whatever reason, they still need cooperation from the employees who are going to eventually lose their jobs.
There is often a transition period to change the business practice, and AIG is like any other of these companies being bailed out. They’re going to have to downsize, and they knew they were going to have to downsize. All these people getting bonuses are going to be laid off. All these people getting bonuses are being fired down the road, and everybody’s known it for a year. Everybody knew the payout date of the bonuses and yet there’s Barney Frank acting like he didn’t know a thing about the details until he got a letter from Andrew Cuomo this morning. These people are lying through their teeth to you. Members of Congress, the media, the president, they’re lying. They’re lying through their teeth. They knew of the payout schedule. They knew about the retention bonuses.
They knew how much and they knew the payout date, and they sit around, they act like innocent bystanders, surprised and shocked, just this past weekend, as though they are learning about this for the first time. During this transition period, the company needs these employees to assist. They just… You can’t do work without employees. For example, if the employee were told that they had six months left in the job, their immediate focus would be finding a new job. To hell with their current work, they’re getting laid off. What the hell does it matter? The only thing that will keep them there, the only thing that will keep them working until their termination date is a retention bonus. Some employees forgo the retention bonus, because they get a hiring bonus from their new employer.
So when you hear that these people who are getting the bonus ought to be fired? They have been! They’ve been told they’re being sent packing. These retention bonuses are to keep them there to keep the company running, which is, I thought, the purpose of the bailout: to keep the company running.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Chillicothe, Ohio, this is Tom. Thank you for waiting, sir. You’re next.
CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush. I’ve got a question. There was a promise during the campaign that people over 65 weren’t going to have to pay income tax anymore. I seem to remember Barack Hussein Obama saying that, and I’m 66 and I’m still paying them. I’d kind of look at it as a bonus if I didn’t have to, you know.
RUSH: Yeah, I don’t remember that proposal of people over 65 will not have to pay taxes.
CALLER: Well —
RUSH: ‘Cause Social Security benefits are taxed.
CALLER: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
RUSH: Where did you hear that?
CALLER: I seem to remember hearing it during the campaign.
RUSH: Are you sure that you are not confusing over 65 with the 95% of Americans will pay no tax increase or get a tax cut?
CALLER: I must be in the five percent then because my CPA says I’ll have to pay federal income tax until I’ve been dead for six months.
RUSH: Oh, I would think it would be beyond that.
CALLER: This is horrible. This is back to the seventies. The millions of dollars to AIG people and, you know, Schumer’s already been made a liar on Fox News. There’s no way to get the money back, according to Neil Cavuto.
RUSH: Well, AIG could write the government a check if they wanted to, if they had the money. There may be no way to get the money back from the individuals now, but Cavuto is perhaps — I love Neil Cavuto now, don’t misunderstand — but if Neil Cavuto says that there’s no way of getting the money back, Neil Cavuto does not understand the full power, depth, scope and intentions of these people running the government. Oh, legally? He means legally? That’s what I mean. He doesn’t understand the full scope, depth and deceit of these people running the government. What the hell — legally?