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Today, Congressman Bill Posey (R-Rockledge) voted against an unconstitutional bill crafted by the Majority to cover up for their bungling of the AIG bonus payment issue over the past month.

Today’s newspapers reported that over a month ago, when the final stimulus bill was being written and rushed to the floor of Congress, Obama Administration officials under Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner came to Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) and asked him to insert a provision in the bill specifically exempting contractual bonus payments from the bill’s bonus payment ban.

Senator Dodd is quoted as saying, “I [made the changes] at the request of administration officials, who gave us no indication that this was in any way related to AIG.” The 1100-page stimulus bill was made available only a few hours before Speaker Pelosi forced Members of Congress to vote up or down on the bill. Every Republican in the House and all but 3 Republicans in the Senate voted against that bill.

“The Treasury knew about these bonuses a month ago and the Secretary of the Treasury knew about them five days before they were to be paid out,” said Rep. Posey. “They took no action to stop the payments and now the majority is trying to cover their tracks by bringing to the floor an unconstitutional bill. This is more proof that government bailouts don’t work and that they should end.”

“I cosponsored legislation to stop the $350 billion bailout money that was authored earlier this year. And I will work to block the additional $250 billion in bailout funds the President recently asked for in his budget plan. The government has proven once again that it can’t be trusted with that much money. I don’t think anybody deserves a bonus,” said Congressman Posey, a member of the House Financial Services Committee. “The fact that this legislation allows even one dime to be spent on bonuses is insulting to the hard working taxpayers footing the bill for all of these bailouts. Yet the cover bill being considered on the House floor today, lets them keep $16 million of the $165 million in bonus payments.”

Instead, Congressman Posey suggested a better course would be for Congress to direct the Secretary of the Treasury to use every legal means to stay or recoup any bonus payments made by AIG. Posey is a cosponsor of H.R. 1577 a bill to require the Treasury Department to create a plan to recoup the bonus money and require future bonuses to be subject to strict oversight by the Treasury Department.