AIG photo-illustration
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How was AIG able to live so dangerously for so long? In part because for years Washington looked the other way. The company befriended politicians with campaign cash--$9.3 million divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans from 1990 to 2008, the Center for Responsive Politics reported. And it spent more than $70 million to lobby them over the past decade, escaping the kind of regulation that might have prevented the current crisis.
The fact that AIG was in Washington long before the current Administration hasn't spared the Obama team from criticism over the recent bonus payouts. The main target for the opprobrium is Geithner. He still enjoys the confidence of U.S. allies abroad and understands the deeply complicated world of global finance far better than the lawmakers who may soon write new legislation to regulate it. But he has not been a strong public face for a government that needs to project confidence. He has been slow to staff his department, hampering the Administration's ability to react to the crisis--and possibly helping explain Treasury's leaden-footed reaction to the AIG bonuses, which were first reported in January. A former Treasury official blames Geithner for a "strategic hesitation that has really affected the confidence index, not just in the financial marketplace but in the political marketplace." A veteran Washington Democrat was more direct: "He's not a wartime consigliere."
Geithner's backers note that he took over an office that was drowning in crises and has had to address failing banks; impossible-to-price toxic securities; a continuing auto-bailout program; woes at Citigroup, AIG and other financial houses; a housing crisis; and an upcoming G-20 summit all at the same time. Even his detractors admit that the to-do list is the deepest any Treasury boss has faced in 80 years.
Which helps explain why, at least for now, Geithner benefits from a rare bipartisan agreement. Republicans have largely been reluctant to scare away a Treasury chief who has roots in the Bush era and understands their benefactors' core businesses; Democrats are even more reluctant to publicly criticize the President's choice at a moment of economic peril. "I have complete confidence in Tim Geithner and my entire economic team," Barack Obama said. "He is making all the right moves in terms of playing a bad hand." Still, a longtime Treasury observer says, "his margin for error has been reduced."
Geithner's failure to reckon quickly with the existence of large retention bonuses for AIG employees in the Financial Products division is perplexing. On Jan. 27, Bloomberg News reported that AIG has offered "about $450 million in retention pay" to the AIG FP staff, a program that AIG confirmed. Representative Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, knew about the bonuses two weeks earlier, on Jan. 15, when he met with Liddy, and the Congressman never kept his displeasure secret. Nor was he alone in raising alarms. In January, Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, called the bonuses a "waste of taxpayer money."