The Representative Replies

If you'll remember a few weeks ago, I sent a letter to my U.S. Representative that represents my district. To my surprise, I actually got a letter back! Now, I'm not naive to think that he specifically took note of my letter and decided to reply back, but I do feel that my letter must have been one of many that voiced a common concern regarding the AIG bonus legislation. There must have been so many that he (or at least his staff) felt the need to respond to the criticism.

An even bigger surprise was that he actually agreed with me.

His letter was two pages long, but the nut of it was on the first page. Here's what he wrote, with emphasis mine.

Thanks for contacting me in opposition to H.R. 1586, the AIG bonuses legislation that I now call the "take-it-back-with-a-tax" solution. With hindsight, I should have not voted for this bill.

As you probably know, the AIG bill was brought up hurriedly because of the public outcry over the bonuses. It had broad, bipartisan support. The vast majority of the House voted for it, both Democrats and Republicans. Most Members understood the bill was meant to recover outrageous sums paid with the help of US taxpayers to the very AIG traders who were responsible for AIG's incredible financial mess. And although I recognized possible constitutional problems, I thought we should leave these for the courts to decide because mounting public anger over coddling Wall Street was eroding the ability of Congress to properly meet the huge financial challenges facing the country.

Democratic governments both lead and follow their electorates. Congress might have done a bit more leading on this one. At the least, we might have slowed the rush to judgment.

He then goes on to say how he now understands the situation was a bit more complicated than initially thought. He understands that the stimulus bill they passed contained verbiage specifically allowing these types of bonuses. He understands that most of the targets of this bill have no blame for AIG's financial mess. In fact, he said, "They are no more guilty than anyone else working on Wall Street for outsized pay."

In other words, he admitted that it was wrong for them to rush to a decision in this matter without fully weighing their options or repercussions. While I am glad that he fully admitted their error (after all, they are only human), I was a bit disappointed at his almost casual reference to ignoring what he thought to be a breach of constitutionality. I didn't appreciate him having the attitude that, 'Oh well, we've got to do something, and even though I know this goes against the Constitution, the courts can figure it out in the end.'

I also didn't like that they knowingly and intentionally wrote this law to directly attack a specific group of people. That is regrettable, and won't be forgotten soon. However, in regards to that, he had my favorite line of the entire letter:

[This bill's] take-it-back-with-a-tax solution should die in the Senate and be relegated to the dust bins, just further evidence that the Senate is adult supervision for the House.

Indeed.

I'm not going to harp on it any more this time, but I will wait and see what comes down the pipe. If another senseless bill gets passed with similar attitudes (act-first-to-look-busy), then I will bring it back up. For now, I will assume the lesson is noted and learned and he will try to do better in the future, appreciative that in the end his viewpoint steered toward a more rational and reasonable direction.