Money, Rasmussen and the Obama Agenda

Money. It is something we all need to pay our rent/mortgage, send our kids to school and buy everything from food to gas. We would all like to have some more so we can buy nice cars or go on vacation. It is also something that many people don't have very much of these days. But it is also being used by politicians to fuel outrage and get policies passed that may not be in the best interest of the country.

A recent Rasmussen poll illustrates this all too well.

30% of Americans polled by Rasmussen, the famous polling organization built by Scott Rasmussen, say they want pay to athletes and movie stars to be limited to $1 million. Another 59% disagree with this assessment. (Another poll shows similar numbers want limits to executive pay - 36% for and 54% opposed.) But the high number of those that do shows the unrest and outrage sentiments that have been used by the Obama Administration to fuel what amounts to no less than class warfare.

The stark differences in who wants to limit pay is just as telling. 35% of women say athlete pay should be limited versus 29% of men. As far as executive pay, 42% of women say limits are good, while 29% of men think so.

In more telling findings, those who agree with pay limits for executives are divided along the haves and have nots. 50% of those earning less than $20,000 a year favor limits on executive pay, while only 15% of those earning over $100,000 a year think the pay should be kept to $1 million. 66% of investors don't like the idea of a salary cap. Non-investors are more divided along the 50-50% line.

The outrage against AIG and others who appear to have "misused" money given to them by Congress, the Treasury and the Obama Administration is being manipulated by these same entities. But is it warranted? Are the American taxpayers being used to get a bigger agenda passed?

Consider the case of Jake DeSantis, VP of AIG's financial products division. He was one of the executives that recieved the infamous "retention bonuses" that have caused much of the recent fervor among taxpayers. The government has called these people vile names and demanded they pay the money back. (Forget the fact that they all knew about the bonuses as long ago as November of 2008 and as recent as a week before the bonuses were given.) There have even been calls for cirminal investigations and new laws to tax these people 90%.

Yet Jake DeSantis shows us all is not as the government would lead us to believe. In a letter to the New York Times Opinion page, he sent a public resignation. In it he explains what those in the Obama government would not want you to know.

He deserved the bonus.

DeSantis and his fellow financial services division worked hard to make the division profitable (most years it was neary $100,000 in the black). They did what was aksed, and they did it very well. They were not part of the operations and policies that lead AIG down the road to hell and damnation. In fact. most of those who were responsible had already left the company. But with the public outcry against him personally, the failure of the CEO of AIG to come to their defense and the baseless hate speech by government officials, left him no choice but to resign. (And all this while he very civically minded agreed to take a salary of just $1 a year.) He is going to take his $742,000 (which is his bonus minus taxes) and give it away to help those impacted by the current hard economic times.

I appalud DeSantis for his actions. No one was speaking out for these hard working Americans whose only fault was getting paid the contractual amount of money they EARNED. It was not his fault that AIG failed and needed to be bailed out. It was not his fault that Dodd and Geitner and others secretly protected his bonus and then cried foul after the fact.

And all this goes to illustrate how those in power would manipulate our anger and focus it in directions that best suit their goals.

Am I a fan of bailouts? No. Do I think athletes and movie stars and executives make too much money, more than I feel they are worth? You bet. But do I think the government has a right to dictate what they make? No. I don't even think they have a right to arbitrarily say who gets paid what in a bailed out company. Maybe if they were to take an active role in reorganizing said company or insutry, maybe. But they aren't. they are whipping out the proverbial check book and printing whatever cash they want, and spending it nilly-willy wherever they please, like a drunk sailor on liberty.

Maybe we should start limiting other things that are more important. maybe we need to limit government salaries, instead of letting them vote on their own pay raises (the likes of which they got in january 2009, amidst the "worst economic crisis since the great Depression." (Obama's words, not mine.) Maybe we also need to start limiting how long they can serve in Congress (50 plus years is just ridiculoous).

Meanwhile, as we are all focused on this new outrage against the good taxpayers, the government is designing laws to attack specific wage earners (not really a good thing if they decide to use this new law on you). They are allowing embryonic stem cell research under the guise of scientifically sound reasoning in very unscientific ways. They are expanding government bigger and bigger, creating new departments (The White House Office of Urban Affairs) and increasing government positions.And sending millions and billions of dollars overseas for everything from abortion to foreign bank bailouts.

Sources:
New York Times Op/Ed
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?ref=opinion

Rasmussen
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/30_say_government_should_limit_pay_for_athletes_and_movie_stars

Presidential Actions - WhiteHouse.gov
http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing_room/PresidentialActions/