Fudge Packer the Porker

[SuperScout]

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has named House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) Porker of the Month for expressing public umbrage over reports that insurance giant AIG, a recipient of $173 billion from the U.S. Treasury, had distributed $165 million in retention bonuses to some of the employees who helped bring the company to the verge of collapse. Chairman Frank fulminated on March 16 that AIG had “rewarded failure” in awarding the bonuses. That’s rich. Chairman Frank has never been shy about rewarding failure in the past, and he generally favors using taxpayer dollars to do it. He was front and center in support of the enactment of the the $700 billion financial bailout bill, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which noticeably had no enforceable strings attached related to executive compensation. Perhaps most damning is Chairman Frank’s irresponsible defense of the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the years, even when it became clear that executives at the two giant government-sponsored enterprises had manipulated earnings statements and gifted themselves with huge bonuses based on the bogus numbers, misled regulators, and steered the companies into such shoddy condition that they posed a systemic risk to the entire financial system. For his ample and under-appreciated contributions to the nation’s current economic meltdown and his near-genius ability to engage in the two-faced blame game, CAGW names Rep. Frank the March Porker of the Month.