What Critter could vote for more AIG bailout money?

[European Socialist]

Something seems mighty strange with this whole situation. AIG must be losing a lot of customers. Are they trying to fail?

[sam sarrha]

1. their criminal activity that caused this mess is being revieled.. people are wizing up >link>>

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4490541725797746038

[Mind_your_head]

2. Only RATS - gathered together - can *cope* with the stench of this "DEAL" n/t

[tulsakatz]

3. a friend sent me an email today...........

....she said that AIG insures the Congress' pensions.....

I don't know if it's true but if it is, it makes sense that they would want to protect their own pension plan.....

[AZ Criminal JD]

4. That is ridiculous

The U.S. taxpayers, through the Treasury Dept., insures Congressional pensions.

[mackerel]

6. There are a lot of blogs and discussion sites out there

making the claim that AIG underwrites Congressional pensions.

[Mind_your_head]

5. Maybe it makes 'sense' in a certain *convoluted* way.....but it sure ain't "right"

(pure, good).

[mackerel]

7. Found it

From C-Span:

Congressional pensions are funded the same way as those of other federal employees: through a combination of general tax provisions and contributions from the participants.

If you care about the details, there's a Congressional report, written in Lesser Bureaucratese, here. While it details how much money a Congresscritter could receive on retirement, it fails to mention where that money comes from.

More relevant to your question is this report, which does mention where the funding comes from. Basically, Congresscritters are now under the same pension plan as all other Federal employees. The pension trust fund is built from a combination of employer and employee contributions, which is probably similar to your retirement plan (presuming you have one, of course). An interesting gem from that report suggests that things have been set up by a gambler:

At the start of FY2001, taking into account benefits yet to be earned in addition to benefits that have already been accrued, the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund had an unfunded liability of $509 billion, all of which is attributable to CSRS and none to FERS. Although the civil service trust fund has an unfunded liability, it is not in danger of becoming insolvent. At no point over the next 75 years will the fund be exhausted.

Now for the rest of your email. In public, at least, it was the Fed and the Treasury who were in a hurry to rescue AIG. In fact, there was some noisy Congressional opposition to the bailout. Now, if they were saying one thing in public and the opposite in private, I'd not be aware of it. (And, if I was aware, I probably couldn't comment, eh? ;) )

While I'm perfectly willing to bash Congresscritters as a class, and individuals who I believe are especially blameworthy, I do think we should limit it to issues that are demonstrably factual. It's not like that keeps us from criticizing them, eh?
Sources: http://www.c-span.org/questions/weekly68.htm http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RL30631.pdf https://www.policyarchive.org/bitstream/handle/10207/691/98-810_20030606.pdf?sequence=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/business/17insure.html http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/17/aig.bailout.congress/index.html

[C......N......C]

8. AIG bonuses contract ural ?

They say they have to pay the AIG bonuses because they are in the contract, What about the UAW contract ?