Letter Writing Campaign

This morning I heard and read in several places that AIG is about to pay out 165 million in bonuses to the managers and executives who created the mess in that company. The bonuses will be paid out of the money that we taxpayers are giving AIG to bail them out so they don't fail and take the rest of the country down with them. According to what I read the bonuses are written into these employees contracts and AIG (and thus you & I) are legally bound to pay them. Further I am given to understand that Federal attorneys have looked at said contracts and agreed that they are indeed legally binding.

When I worked for the Dept. of Labor my salary, like all public employees, was public information. Since the taxpayers now own 80% of AIG I'm asking my congressman and senators to pass a bill stating that because these AIG execs are being paid out of public funds they should, like everyone else paid from public monies, have their names and the amounts of salary and bonus they receive from us the taxpayers released as public information, available to anyone who wants it. In fact I think that the web site that the Obama administration has established to show where the stimulus plan money is going would be the perfect place to list them all. I suggest to anyone reading this that you also write your Federal representatives (and the White House while you are at it) and suggest the same. If we're stuck with rewarding them for creating this mess perhaps we can at least shame them a bit for their greed.