Rudy Giuliani went on CNN’s American Morning today to challenge Obama’s statement yesterday that Wall Street executives who awarded themselves $20 billion bonuses as their companies were failing was “shameful.”
“I remember when I was mayor, one of the ways in which you determine New York City’s budget, tax revenue is Wall Street bonuses,” he said.
“If you somehow take that bonus out of the economy, it really will create unemployment,” he said. “It means less spending in restaurants, less spending in department stores, so everything has an impact.”
Okay, so while he is technically right that less Wall Street money flying around is unhappy-making for everyone, this is so misleading we can’t even stand it. Obama was not objecting to bonuses per se, he was objecting to executives taking bonuses (a) when they performed so badly that they had to rely on government assistance in order to remain afloat and (b) more important, when they were laying people off. That they were, in fact, creating unemployment to pay said bonuses, instead of just keeping people on and giving everyone a regular freaking salary.
Anyway, frankly, we’re surprised CNN even asked Giuliani to be on. There is only one true expert capable of tackling the nuances of the underlying subject here — which is obviously Obama’s secret agenda to redistribute wealth — and that is Joe the Plumber. Where is he? Filming a low-budget commercial somewhere?
