On what Horton said:

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said he will subpoena American International Group Inc., the insurer that got a $173 billion taxpayer bailout, for information on employees who he said were sent bonuses March 13.

Cuomo said in a conference call that the New York-based insurer claims it had to make the retention payments because of employment contracts.

“If the taxpayer didn’t bail out AIG, those contracts wouldn’t be worth the paper they’re printed on,” Cuomo said. “Just because there’s a contract doesn’t mean there’s no way around the contract.”...

Cuomo said the company may have violated New York laws prohibiting so-called fraudulent conveyances. If a company enters into contracts in which it agrees to pay funds it “effectively doesn’t have, it’s akin to a looting of a company,’’ he said.

If the AIG contracts were signed when people involved knew “the finances were going south,” it could lead to fraudulent conveyance, Cuomo said.

Cuomo declined to comment on whether he was examining AIG’s retention bonuses outside the financial products’ unit.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aU1d040FM6L0&refer=home

Other ideas for dealing with the bonuses:

"One idea we're kind of thinking about is a tax provision," the Connecticut Democrat [Chris Dodd] said. "We have a right to tax. You could write a tax provision that's narrowly crafted only to the people receiving bonuses. That's a way maybe to deal with it."

Dodd said the notion is in the "earliest of thinking" and has not been settled on as a way to resolve the issue that has set off outrage in Washington and across the country.

In the House, Democrats are trying to shame AIG executives into forgoing the bonuses. They're also investigating possible legal avenues Congress can take to force the company to return money used for bonuses, a House Democratic leadership aide and a House Financial Services Committee aide said Monday.

The committee is trying to determine whether Congress can force AIG to renegotiate the bonuses, which the company says it is legally required to give employees under contracts negotiated before the company received its first infusion of bailout dollars in September, according to the committee aide.

Both aides said it is unclear what authority Congress might have to force AIG to take back the bonuses.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/16/AIG.bonuses/index.html

I posted this in a previous comment. Apparently, the NYS AG is looking into this...

Cuomo said the company may have violated New York laws prohibiting so-called fraudulent conveyances. If a company enters into contracts in which it agrees to pay funds it “effectively doesn’t have, it’s akin to a looting of a company,’’ he said.

If the AIG contracts were signed when people involved knew “the finances were going south,” it could lead to fraudulent conveyance, Cuomo said.

Cuomo declined to comment on whether he was examining AIG’s retention bonuses outside the financial products’ unit.

You're welcome, bystander!

I read this last night after dinner and had a hard time keeping it down. So don't say I didn't warn you.

Obama to skip Gridiron for Camp David

Friday's announcement of the president's travel plans is likely to make the Gridiron snub seem like, well, more of a snub — especially as Obama would be the first president since at least World War II to skip the event in his first year in office....

Of course, skipping the Gridiron is already sparking the inevitable questions: Does Obama's version of change in Washington mean not taking part in some of its oldest rituals? And if the president doesn't show up at a dinner whose guest of honor is usually the president, what happens to the dinner?

Gridiron singed by Obama no-show

But some Gridiron veterans make clear they don’t understand. Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page said, “People feel uncommonly saddened, miffed and burned.

“I don’t think he understands the implications of not coming to the club in the first year. It’s not your ordinary state dinner. I think it would be helpful for him and his relations with the Washington establishment to come to the club.”

Beyond bruised feelings among the pundit class, Obama’s snub is a revealing cultural moment.

Gridiron has for decades been an inner sanctum of Washington’s political press corps. The club’s mostly aging members were considered highly prestigious because they said so — and because they had the ability to summon the capital’s political elite to a spring frolic of skits and songs.

I don't know why Obama decided not to attend, but I'm glad he did.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20036.html

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20036.html

Sorry about that - wrong thread.