me email to Obama, Frank, Kennedy, Kerry
 

Dear Sir,

While I can understand the current anger against bonuses paid at AIG , I believe the Congress is following a “mob rules” mentality in addressing the situation. The current proposal passed by the house taxes bonuses 90% for companies that received TARP funding for families making 250k a year or more. Do you realize the downstream implications of this? How can these companies know what a “family’s income is? You are penalizing hard working people, in an industry that relies on employees to work long hours with no overtime pay. For example, take 2 employees at Bank of America, in a fund accounting role, both making 75k per year and received a bonus of 10k. One person is the sole provider for his family, the others spouse is a lawyer and makes 200k per year. As a result, the employee married to the lawyer will lose 90% of their bonus, thus making less money for doing the same job as their peer. This bill is being marketed as a target to “executives” but in fact will hit middle class people.

Many of the firms that received TARP funds are leaders in web technology and consumer banking. Many have profitable divisions. This bill penalizes hard working and entrepreneurial people in an industry, that now more than ever, needs to move forward. Demonizing and penalizing an entire industry, that this country NEEDS to be successful, because of the actions of a few is a crime. This proposal does not impact executives only, but IT, Marketing, Sales, Operations, and almost all middle management. These people make up the “middle class” you are so vocal about protecting. The House took 40 minutes to debate and pass this. The consequences were not thought out. Please understand the implications of these actions and consider carefully what is legal and moral and what will move this country forward.