It was Obama officials, not Dodd, who demanded that already-vested bonus payments be exempted.

[biopowertoday]

and the clickable story to firedoglake from yesteday at link:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/17/dodd/index.html



............Can that be any clearer? It was Obama officials, not Dodd, who demanded that already-vested bonus payments be exempted. And it was Dodd, not Obama officials, who wanted the prohibition applied to all compensation agreements, past and future. The provision which shielded already-promised bonus payments from the executive compensation limits ended up being inserted at the insistence of Geithner. A spokesperson for Dodd, who is now consumed by these completely unfair attacks, finally confirmed today that these provisions were inserted at the direction of Treasury officials:

Senator Dodd’s original executive compensation amendment adopted by the Senate did not include an exemption for existing contracts that provided for these types of bonuses. Because of negotiations with the Treasury Department and the bill Conferees, several modifications were made, including adding the exemption, to ensure that some bonus restrictions would be included in the final stimulus bill.

During the debate over these provisions, The Wall St. Journal article identified above reported explicitly that it was Geithner and Summers who were rejecting Dodd's limits on executive compensation as too broad and demanding that already-vested payments be exempted: exactly the exemption that protected the AIG bonuses and which they're now trying to blame on Dodd:

The administration is concerned the rules will prompt a wave of banks to return the government's money and forgo future assistance, undermining the aid program's effectiveness. Both Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, who heads the National Economic Council, had called Sen. Dodd and asked him to reconsider, these people said.
......................

[ClarkUSA]

1. Dodd is lying; his story today is dramatically different than it was yesterday.

[Jane Austin]

3. He's on Tweety right now NOT

changing his story.

[ClarkUSA]

10. I watched Dodd's LIVE interview on CNN; Wolf questioned Dodd about his two very different stories...

... Dodd babbled some nonsense; afterwards, Blitzer was discussing with it Donna Brazile, both of them shaking their heads.

[Jennicut]

6. I heard he changed his story as well....we shall see who is

telling the truth.

[Louis-Emmanuel]

11. In what respect did Dodd change his story?

?

[ClarkUSA]

14. Find out for yourself. Don't you have another anti-Obama OP to post before sundown?

[Louis-Emmanuel]

15. So...You said Dodd changed his story, but you don't know how

I don't think you should keep it a secret, unless your charge is unsubstantiated.

[ClarkUSA]

17. I don't share info with folks that only post anti-Obama OPs. Oh, welcome to DU. Really.

[Schema Thing]

16. , Charlie

[polichick]

2. If this is the case, the President's team should own up and explain their reasoning.

[montanacowboy]

4. Geithner and Summers MUST go

I have never been sold on these two from the get go and now it is apparent that Obama must cut them loose or he will become a part of this whole AIG debacle

How about Paul Krugman or Robert Reich? huh? what the hell was Obama thinking when he picked these dodos?

[Jennicut]

9. Krugman does not want to be part of the administration and made that

clear.

[amandabeech]

13. Maybe Stiglitz or Krugman or Volcker could recommend someone who doesn't

pray to Milton Friedman every night and who either wasn't involved in the worst shenanigans or has had a true change of heart more serious than the one that Greenspan has had.

The only one of the Obama econ crew who wasn't all tied up in the shenanigans to my knowledge is Paul Volker. He's old, but if he's up to the task . . .

[biopowertoday]

5. Feb 15 report from Think progress on the Dodd/WH dispute:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/17/dodd/index.html


UPDATE: Just in case the point wasn't yet crystal clear, here is a Think Progress report from February 15, 2009, reporting on the White House/Dodd dispute over the executive compensation provisions. Is there any doubt which party was the one demanding weaker and narrower executive compensation limits? (hint: it wasn't Dodd):

[EFerrari]

7. It doesn't matter in a way. The bribe had to be paid

for AIG to continue to co-operate It probably was Geitner and Dodd is taking the hit to try to save him.

That won't matter either. Tim is gone in the next month most likely.

[Louis-Emmanuel]

8. Media Matters, too, makes it clear it wasn't Dodd

Media Matters today debunked the smear to Dodd by Fox people, Although MM does not say who specifically fought to include the exemption that benefited AIG:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200903180019?f=h_latest

[nc4bo]

12. Then these officials certainly need to step up to the mike

and explain it.

Obama says he knows the American people are outraged. HE is outraged. So how in the world could they remove the restrictions with no explanation. The Admin. had to know that there would be even more outrage.

Muddy waters..

Btw, thanks for the link.

[biopowertoday]

18. Do you think Geitner and Summers acted without input from the WH??.........

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090318/ap_on_go_pr_wh/aig_what_did_they_know



Cue the Washington outrage




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.

Why the sudden furor, just weeks after Barack Obama's team paid out $30 billion in additional aid to the company? So far, the administration has been unable to match its actions to Obama's tough rhetoric on executive compensation. And Congress has been unable or unwilling to restrict bonuses for bailout recipients, despite some lawmakers' repeated efforts to do so.

The situation has the White House and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the defensive. The administration was caught off guard Tuesday trying to explain why Geithner had waited until last Wednesday to call AIG chief executive Edward M. Liddy and demand that the bonus payments be restructured.

Publicly, the White House expressed confidence in Geithner — but still made it clear he was the one responsible for how the matter was handled.

While administration officials insisted Tuesday that neither Obama nor Geithner learned of the impending bonus payments until last week, the problem wasn't new. AIG's plans to pay hundreds of millions of dollars were publicized last fall, when Congress started asking questions about expensive junkets the company had sponsored. A November SEC filing by the company details more than $469 million in "retention payments" to keep prized employees............

[terisan]

19. I hate it when presidents blame their staff people. Reminds me of Nixon.

[biopowertoday]

22. I have not

checked the news tonight as I have been at work. Some one in the WH has to be involved as I do not think Geitner nor Summers acted on their own. Possible but not probable IMHO.

[terisan]

20. I think they were relying on the Friday Night News Dump-the Friday afternoon to Sunday time frame

when government releases embarrassing news in the hope it will be ignored.

[TacticalPeek]

21. "it was Geithner and Summers who were rejecting Dodd's limits on executive compensation"

This problem is still in the hen house.

[biopowertoday]

23. And Axelrod ................

hese are Axelrod's words and he says Obama was outraged feb 15.

and Think progress also has a piece about this issue from Feb 15:

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/15/exec-pay-debate /


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



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/15/white-house-concerned-abo_n_167041.html

February 15, 2009 10:21 AM

The Obama administration acknowledged on Sunday that its top economic officials had expressed concerns to Congress that the sharp restrictions on executive compensation included in the stimulus package could be counterproductive. Moreover, they did not rule out the possibility that the president could loosen the restrictions.

In an appearance on Fox News Sunday, chief strategist Axelrod said that the President and Congress shared the same "outrage" over the "spectacle of gaudy bonuses for executives at firms that are getting extraordinary assistance from American taxpayers." But he also acknowledged "concerns" that the restrictions in the stimulus went too far. Critics of restrictions believe they will encourage top-officials to leave their companies or persuade banks to not participate in the TARP program.

"Well, obviously, Secretary Geithner and Mr. Summers had concerns about that," said Axelrod. "And they expressed those concerns. But the concerns are at the margins and the goal is one we share."

The president has said he favors capping compensation. But in the final version $787 billion package, Congress also put restrictions on the size of bonuses that bank executives could receive, and expanded the pool of impacted companies beyond what President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner announced in early February.

Here is the transcript:

CHRIS WALLACE: It now turns out that buried in the economic stimulus plan that was passed this week by Congress is a measure that would sharply restrict bonuses for top earners on Wall Street. The White House is reportedly worried that this could result in a brain drain from the firms. That some firms may pay the money back more quickly than they responsibly should so they don't have those restrictions. Is the white house going to try to soften that set of restrictions on pay?


AXELROD: Let me say the President's been very clear that he shares the outrage that most Americans feel about the spectacle of gaudy bonuses for executives at firms that are getting extraordinary assistance from American taxpayers. It's not right. It shouldn't move forward. He's announced his own guidelines for how we should restrict that. In some ways they're tougher than the ones that the Senate passed. They have a hard cap, for example, on compensation. And in other ways they differ. So we're going to work with them... with Senate and the House -- to come up with an appropriate approach to this........