Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:51:34 +0000 – By Newt GingrichFOX News Contributor/Former House Speaker
"Outrage" is the word on everyone's lips to describe the fat bonuses being paid with taxpayer funds to the failed executives at AIG -- and it is an outrage.
It's an outrage that the American people are being asked to pay for the bad behavior of people who should have known better, be they reckless traders on Wall Street or reckless borrowers on Main Street.
But the cure for our outrage is not merely, as President Obama is demanding, that AIG be prevented from paying its executives. The $165 million in planned bonuses -- as manifestly undeserved as it is -- is chicken feed compared to the $170 billion in taxpayer funds AIG has received so far.
Nor is it acceptable to ask Americans to keep throwing their tax dollars at failed companies and their leaders.
The answer is an old fashioned one: AIG should choose between receivership or bankruptcy. It should not be allowed to choose more bailouts from the taxpayer.
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