Tuesday
Mar172009
President Obama celebrates St. Patrick's Day with the Irish Prime Minister
Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 5:00PM
Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Brian Cowen brought some St. Patrick's Day cheer today, as he met with President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on his visit to Washington D.C. The trio were greeted with the sound of bagpipes from the United States Air Force Reserve Pipe Band as they walked down the House of Representative steps. The Irish Prime Minister later discussed his visit with press outside the Cannon House Building.
Pelosi: “New, Subject, New Subject, New Subject"
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) held a press conference this morning, but appeared to have no desire to talk about the AIG bonuses at length with reporters.
Pelosi opened the conference by talking about the Iraq war. She said: “On this day in 2003, the President called for the initiation of hostilities into Iraq. Here we are six years later, six years later in Iraq. The good news is that our new President has called for an end to the war and a timetable to bring our troops out of Iraq.”
The Speaker then went on to talk about the President’s budget. She called it “an outline of transformation” and an “outline for the future” and a “budget that is the statement of our values, as a Federal budget should be.”
Third on Pelosi’s list of talking points was the news of the AIG bonuses. She said: “We see the outrage of the American people in terms of bonuses paid by AIG and perhaps others who have received TARP funds and on the floor of the House today we will present legislation to address the concerns of the American people. To bring some justice to the situation and to get the taxpayers money back.” Pelosi added that as a result of the scandal “legislation may be written in the Judiciary Committee that relates to the contracts.”
Opening up to the questions, the issue of top priority for journalists was the AIG scandal. Pelosi made clear that the issues of bonuses with AIG could be linked back to the previous administration and refuted an accusation from one reporter who claimed she was being blamed for the AIG bonuses scandal. Pelosi said: “You are the first person to tell me I am being blamed for this.” Pelosi added: “I think you go right back to September 16th, when the announcement was made by the Chairman of the Fed, that they would be making this big infusion of cash into AIG...the question is why were there even bonuses in the first place.” Pelsoi further commented that “we are sweeping up after them,” when taking about the Bush Administration's handling of TARP contracts with CEO’s.
Talking about a loophole in the legislation that stemmed from Conference Committee, Pelosi stated that this ‘was language discussed on the Senate side, that was never in any Conference that we agreed with or disagreed with.” Pelosi did not want to comment further on the loophole, deferring journalists to speak to the Senate about this matter.
Pelosi observed that “The public interest knows no date, the authority to look into these bonuses or in our case today to tax them exists if the public interests is not served and nobody can hide behind a contract, or a date, or a conversation, that may or may not have taken place.”
Speaker Pelosi then refused to answer any further questions on the AIG matter. Stating, “New subject, new subject, new subject or else....” She took one question on the budget and then cut the press conference short. As she left, members of the press were shouting for further questions on foreign policy, federal reserve, immigration and issues on the floor, but she would not respond to answer any further questions.