Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others

Bob Herbert calls them "fat cats." The news media diligently exposes business executives benefiting from taxpayer handouts while maintaining a luxurious lifestyle. "Fat cats" use their political connections to lobby for their own advantage.

American International Group (AIG), once the largest insurance company in the US, was full of them. It collapsed September 2008 because it insured too many poorly-performing mortgage-backed securities. "Fat cat" Maurice R. Greenberg, AIG founder and still one of its largest share holders, lobbied members of Congress long before last year's TARP bailout, yet the news media didn't pay much attention.

On April 21, 2008, Charlie Rangel (D), House Ways and Means Committee chairman, met with AIG officials to solicit funds for a public service school to be built in his honor by CCNY. Rangel had already helped get a $5 million pledge from a Greenberg-controlled foundation. A few weeks after Rangel met with AIG officials, an AIG executive wrote and asked Rangel to support a provision of a tax bill that would save AIG millions of dollars a year. Again, the news media didn't pay much attention.

In the last two years AIG lobbyists pushed for changes in at least ten bills handled by the House Ways and Means Committee, including the $700 billion TARP bailout bill. House Ways and Means counsel, Janice Mays said, "There is simply no connection between Chairman Rangel’s advocacy on behalf of an educational institution in his district and legislation affecting AIG.”

The news media was alarmed, but not outraged on September 16, 2008 when then-secretary of the Treasury Paulson (R) and Fed chairman Bernanke put $85 billion of taxpayer money at risk, loaning it to AIG for two years with no guarantees the money would ever be repaid. Roger Altman, a former Clinton administration official expressed the fear:

“It’s the interconnectedness and the fear of the unknown. The prospect of the world’s largest insurer failing, together with the interconnectedness and the uncertainty about the collateral damage — that’s why it’s scaring people so much.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) did criticize the amount, but not the principle of taxpayers guaranteeing loans to businesses in trouble. According to a NY Times article:

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi quickly criticized the rescue, calling the $85 billion a 'staggering sum.' Ms. Pelosi said the bailout was 'just too enormous for the American people to guarantee.'"

Later Pelosi had no compunctions for supporting nearly 20 times as much in guarantees and handouts when she voted for both the $700 billion TARP and the recent $787 billion stimulus package pushed by President Obama.

The hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars for TARP and the close connection between business executives and government didn't alarm the news media or the vast amount of citizens in America. Because some animals are better than others, the principle of taking from some to give to others is not even a consideration in the land of the free. What did outrage the news media and citizens were two boondoggles by AIG "fat cats:"

• September 22-29, 2008: At the St. Regis Monarch Beach resort, a luxury resort in Dana Point, California, AIG rewarded some of its employees with a vacation. The news media castigated AIG because it had just received $85 billion of taxpayer money.
• November 5-7, 2008: After an $85 billion bailout, AIG insurance company executives spent $343,000 of taxpayer money at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak resort, a luxury resort in Phoenix while AIG was waiting to get more taxpayer money. This video shows local news people questioning AIG executives at the airport. Like cockroaches in the kitchen, the executives scurried to their first class flights to avoid news cameras. Good Morning America did a fine job exposing the hypocrisy of the business executives in the embedded video at their news link. (An AIG press release later said the money for the stay came from other sources.)

On November 11, 2008, when the taxpayer-funded AIG rescue amount was increased to $150 billion, the news wasn't about the principle of taking far more money from taxpayers to bail out a failed enterprise. While the news media rightly skewers AIG executives taking advantage of taxpayer money, there is a different standard for politicians who gave away the money.

As one of the powerful and well-connected, green President Obama benefits from the double standard. In March 2008, then candidate for President, Obama released a list of his earmarks for federal spending as a newly elected US Senator, which included a $1 million earmark for the hospital where his wife, Michelle worked.

Michelle was promoted in March 2005 shortly after her husband took office, more than doubling her pay from $121,910 to $316,962. Michael Riordan, hospital president at the time, said the promotion and salary increase had nothing to do with Michelle Obama's husband becoming a U.S. senator:

"She was hired before Barack was Barack."

While answering the unasked question of why Michelle Obama was hired, Riordan didn't address the large increase of her pay after Barack became a US senator, after "Barack was Barack." Apparently some animals are more equal than others.

According to a February 18, 2009 Arizona Republic article, President Obama stayed in the Presidential suite at the InterContinental Montelucia Resort & Spa in Paradise Valley, Arizona for $3000 to $4000 per night. The hotel was fully booked with the Presidential entourage. Apparently President Obama doesn't feel the need to economize even though the Presidential suites at the Arizona Biltmore cost (only) $1600 per night. According to the article:

"Every American president since Herbert Hoover has stayed at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix at least once while visiting the Valley.

"For his first visit here, Obama chose to stay at the new InterContinental Montelucia Resort & Spa in Paradise Valley. Open just three months, the Montelucia is a $325 million Andalusian-inspired stunner that's already facing foreclosure."

The weeks President Obama flies in Air Force One to--coincidentally--politically contested swing states will cost far more than the two boondoggles AIG took at taxpayer expense.

The US government has more than $10.6 trillion in debt. That's far more debt than AIG and its politically-connected "fat cats" will ever owe. Will Good Morning America's Diane Sawyer or anyone else in the news media ask President Obama why he's staying at luxury hotels on taxpayer money?

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. The commandment after the pigs take over in George Orwell's Animal Farm.