Democrats Express Outrage Over Their Own Mistake

Republican Bipartisan Solution Would Return 100% of Taxpayer Dollars

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 19, 2009

Congressman Joe Wilson (SC-02) issued the following statement today after the Democrat leadership passed a constitutionally-questionable tax increase in response to their own spending bill which cleared the way for bonus payments to AIG executives. Democrats had opposed efforts by House Republicans to get 100% of the taxpayer dollars back.

“Today’s vote was the Democrats’ attempt to clean up the mess they made and skirt responsibility for it. They’ve chosen to pass a potentially unconstitutional tax hoping that public anger will hide the very simple fact that it was the Democrat leadership who wrote the stimulus bill, included language to allow these bonuses, and rushed the bill through Congress before the American people could figure it all out. We would all be far better served if the majority would channel a little bit of their own outrage towards reinstating some sanity into the legislative process so these types of actions do not happen in the future.

“Republicans offered bipartisan legislation to get the taxpayer dollars back. Our solution would have required Treasury to recoup 100% of the bonuses paid out before considering sending one dollar more to AIG. Yet our Democrat colleagues opposed the idea. The Republican proposal would have been a measured response to this issue rather than the reactionary, retroactive tax hike offered by Democrats to divert attention away from their own culpability.”

Background:

• While crafting, behind closed doors, their so-called economic “stimulus” package, Democrat leadership inserted language that specifically prohibited limits on bonus payments.
• House Republicans attempted to offer legislation that would have required the Department of the Treasury to recoup bonus payments made by AIG. This effort was opposed by a large majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives.

###