In response to public outrage, Obama is belatedly criticizing the millions of dollars in bonuses that AIG, which is being bailed by taxpayers at a cost of $170 billion, is paying to its executives. But his criticism is hypocritical and dishonest, both because his administration had known about the bonuses long before they became public, and because the stimulus package he himself signed contains language specifically designed to shield those bonuses.

Who put that provision there? Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), who received $280,000 in campaign donations from AIG. (Obama himself received $103,000 from AIG). Since 2003, AIG has made most of its vast campaign contributions to liberal lawmakers — including 68 percent of its contributions in 2008. (Dodd, the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is under an ethical cloud after having received a sweetheart deal from the ailing sub-prime mortgage lender Countrywide).

While executives at AIG get bonuses courtesy of the taxpayer, unions will be receiving billions in inflated and wasteful contracts courtesy of restrictions on state projects contained in the stimulus package.

Liberal lawmakers have also taken steps to insure that illegal aliens and people who lied on their loan applications will benefit from the bailouts.

Obama claimed an economic catastrophe would happen if Congress didn’t pass the bloated $800 billion stimulus package, which guts welfare reform. But now the Congressional Budget Office admits that the “stimulus” will actually make the economy smaller “in the long run.”