I worked for a company which was bought out by another company. The announcement was made in June, with the expected closure being in December. The company gave out what they called retention bonuses (sizable ones at that). The payment was contingent on an employee being on the payroll on the closure date.

Because of the merger, it seemed evident that many jobs would be lost. However, there was still the day to day operations that needed to be completed, as well as the transition work after the close date.

These bonuses were given to keep employees from leaving. It benefited the company because the job still needed to be done, and the cost of training new people to do a job is far greater than paying a bonus to retain the experts. These bonuses were not profit driven. They were not based on importance. They were based on the realization that not paying them could and would have cost more.

A bonus structure is nothing more than a calculated percentage of a salary. When a company is looking to hire someone, they use as a baseline, not just the everyday compensation, but a performance bonus (based on reaching individual, team and district/division goals). Some are based on sales and customer retention. Others are based on cost reduction. In any case, the bonuses are pre-determined on a yearly basis and budgeted as a operating expense (i.e, the cost of doing business).

Congress is purposely confusing a bonus structure with a profit sharing plan (some companies have both), and they are doing so to distract what the real problem is... government intervention into private business. Period.

This Government has slowly lulled the people to sleep and has convinced us that profits are bad, property ownership is worse, and your wallet first belongs to the government, and they give you what they think you are worth.

Don't fall for it. The AIG bonuses are bound by contracts. Many were retention bonuses, like described above. And yes, the argument is also being made that some of the people were not on the payroll at the time the bonuses were paid. Contractually, they didn't have to be. They only had to complete certain tasks, or stay until a pre-determined date. If they met those criteria, then they legally earned those bonuses.

It doesn't matter that the Federal Government "bailed" out AIG. They "bailed out" AIG so AIG could continue day to day operations. Bonuses are nothing but a cost of day to day operations. In fact, I believe the Feds lent the money to AIG, and the money is supposed to be paid back (i could be wrong), and if that is the case, then there are no strings attached to how AIG can spend the money. Period.

Your outrage is misguided. It is misdirected. It should be directed at an overblown, overreaching government which is feining outrage, only to stir up chaos on a situation that they created.

Don't be fooled. Don't be lulled to sleep.

markbureau
24March2009

You want to know the issues? I have the answers... Pass this on..

• You want Race to quit being an issue? Don't bring it up in your campaign. Period.


• You want peace in our time? Stop handcuffing the hands of our commanders behind their backs and let them achieve peace through strength.


• You want to create jobs? Quit regulating how businesses conduct themselves and Quit forcing payroll policies on businesses. Don't tell them they can't have smokers as customers and don't tell them how to cook their french fries.


• You want to curb the cost of health care in this country? Remove yourself from the equation.


• You want to control the "out of control" food prices? Quit forcing a bad product on the American people and use corn for what it was intended for.. food.


• You want to control the "out of control oil prices". Remove the restictions on drilling where the resources are in this country.


• You want to talk about stopping illegal immigration? Keep your promise and build the fence that was legally funded in 2006.


• You want to stop home grown terrorism? Look for terrorists, not shampoo bottles.


• Mike Huckabee says the average Joe wants a president that reminds him of the guy he worked with, not the guy who laid him off. Mike Huckabee doesn't know anything about the average Joe, and I, as an average Joe want a leader for a president, not a pal.


• Hillary Clinton says the average Joe wants a likable president. Hillary Clinton has no idea what the average Joe wants. I don't want my president to be liked by our enemies, foreign and domestic. I want a president who will, as commander in chief of our military, instill fear in our enemies, both foreign and domestic.


• John McCain says the average American Joe won't pick lettuce in Yuma, Arizona for even 50 dollars an hour. John McCain thinks illegals are gonna make him President. John McCain never met me, or any of my brothers.


• John McCain says the answer to politicians receiving bad campaign money is to stop everyone from giving any campaign money. (See Amendment; First)


• John Edwards says there are two Americas so he is gonna take from one America and give to the other America. FDR and Woodrow Wilson would be proud. Enough said.


• Rudy Guiliani says we need to know who the illegals are and the only way to do that is to play big brother by building yet another database.


• Rudy also says he's pro choice, but he would appoint constructionist Justices (like our current president *ahem* did - See Gonzalez, Alberto and Miers, Harriet)


• Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want to give illegals drivers licenses while Mike Huckabee wants to give them in state tuition.


• Mike Huckabee says that cutting taxes by 25 percent in one area of his over taxed state while raising taxes by 50% (500 million dollars) is still a tax cut.


• Our tax system is so convoluted that you have to pay so called experts 75 dollars to file your returns for you, while you get blamed for it whether or not H&R Block screwed up. And oh yeah.. You can pay an additional 10% of your so-called refund to get your money quicker...


• Our tax system says that my 15 year old son is not my son because I make 75,000 dollars a year, but my 24 year old son is my of my dependents because I make less than 82,400 dollars a year.


• All of the candidates think that the most important part of a tax cut is how it will be paid for. Got that? How do we, the American people, pay the Federal Government to let us keep more of our money, so we can give it back to them because they need it more than we do...


... see point number 1. A strong economy starts in my wallet.


• When the next big "stem cell research" or "Global Warming" type crisis comes along, just remember if there was a viable solution in the free market someone would have alreay made billions of dollars by implementing the solution, not by selling offset credits.

  I don't want to hear any conspiracy theories about electronic voting booths. I don't want to see you coming out of a black church on any given Sunday, and for God's sake, quit bastardizing the name of Ronald Reagan. Run on your record, not your contrived, twisted association with Ronald Reagan. If you have to invoke his name to get elected, then you are no Ronald Reagan, never have been and never will be. I know Newt Gingrich would be proud of you today but Reagan is not on the ballot: You are.

Lastly... When you come calling to my state, ringing my bell, asking me for money, I will ask you one question... What portion of your campaign addresses this one topic...

Mark Richard Bureau
1.15.2008

• I don’t speak Spanish.
• I don’t bow toward the east five times daily.
• I own a gun.
• I stand proud every November 11.
• I stand in silence, in prayer every Memorial Day.
• I celebrate the Country’s Independence Day on July 4 every year.
• I drive an SUV.
• I exercise my privilege to vote.
• I exercise my right to freedom of expression, without regard for those who might be offended.
• I don’t believe in artificial rewards for hard work. I believe hard work rewards itself.
• I don’t get my news from Entertainment Tonight. Nor do I get my news from ABC, NBC or CBS.
• I have learned that polar bears can swim as far as 60 miles at a time. They don’t need Leonardo DiCaprio to save them from an iceberg.
• I don’t like what Don Imus said on the air, but I support his right to say it. I also believe that the free market would have rectified that situation had there been a need.
• I mourned with the country for our lost brothers and sisters at Virginia, but I also realize they were victims of political correctness as much as they were victims of a deranged mental case.
• My right to own property should never be taxed as a privilege.
• The fruits of my labor should never be taxed as an excise.
• General Welfare refers to the prosperity of a nation, not the needs of a special class.
• If I was lost in the Oregon wilderness and came across a spotted owl, it would be lunch time.
• No one has a right not to be offended.
• I believe in private charity, not the distribution of wealth by an oversized, over-reaching Government.
• The Dixie Chicks were properly rebuked.
• Harry Reid was not.
• We are not a nation of Katrina victims, although the media would like us to believe we are.
• Humans are not causing global warming on Mars, despite Pathfinder’s presence on the planet.

  And…

• Every September 11 since 2001, I cry alone while not alone. I mourn the loss of life, as well as the loss of liberty and freedom. I cry out in anger over the likes Richard Gere telling me I have to ask myself why they hate us so much. They hate us so much Mr. Gere because they don’t have what he have… Economic Freedom, and the freedom live where we choose, to say what we wish, and to acquire as much wealth through hard work and hard minds.

Are you an American? Then start acting like one.

I realize that we are still 21 months away from the 2008 elections, but it seems the presidential cycle has started early. This is the first election in more than a generation that doesn't have a sitting president or vice-president on the ballot, so it seems natural that we have had almost a dozen people already announce their intentions to run for president.

Without running down the list of announced candidates and why I wouldn't vote for them, or would for that matter, the purpose of this publication is to throw my support behind the only man in the race so far who is a true conservative, not a RINO republican who is trying to convince the Conservative base that he is something he is not. That candidate is Duncan Hunter.

Duncan Hunter is the only conservative in the list of announced candidates. He is the only candidate who supports the reduction of the size of government while staying in the fight against Islamic Fascism. He is also the only announced candidate that wants to do something about the illegal alien invasion we face on our borders that doesn't come with a compromise of a guest worker program and/or amnesty.

Unfortunately, Mr. Hunter has a strike against him. That strike is in the name of radio talk show host Sean Hannity. Mr. Hannity likes to call himself a "Reagan Conservative". He does so so much that Hannity has coined the phrase "What Would Reagan Do?" It seems though that so far in the '08 campaign, Mr. Hannity has chosen to not really care about what Reagan would do, and has given his air time to the likes of John McCain and Rudy Guiliani. I realize that Hannity is king of his airtime, but please, Sean, put the hypocracy aside for just a minute. If you actually believe you are a Reagan Conservative, instead of telling your audience of 15 million people that you don't think Duncan Hunter, a true Reagan Conservative, has the name recognition to win, while giving McCain and Guiliani the campaign contribution that you accuse the main stream media of giving to Hillary Clinton, read up on Mr. Hunter, and give him the same consideration you are giving the RINO candidates.

In this early stage of a campaign season which is not only being accelerated by the main stream media, but also you, Mr. Hannity, to cast off Duncan Hunter because of his lack of name recognition, while you have a voice, a platform, and the ability to make Duncan Hunter the rock star you have made McCain, is hypocritical at its best. With your constant blather about how you first and foremost always ask "What would Reagan Do?", you have a chance to really show that you believe that and do your research on Duncan Hunter. The dance culminates some 21 months from now Mr. Hannity. Don't cast off the only real conservative in the race so far because his "Name Recognition" doesn't translate to ratings in your book. Prove the many in your audience that don't really believe you are a Reagan Conservative that they are wrong. Research Duncan Hunter's record and give him the same consideration you are giving those with that name recognition. Yes, Those RINOs in the race.

I'll give you a hand, Mr. Hannity...

Start here:

• Duncan Hunter's Campaign Site
• Hunter's Congressional Site

I aim to make Duncan a household name by the time the primaries hit, in spite of what the man with an audience of 15 million has for an opinion.

markbureau
http://markbureau.us

This pledge was formally titled "Taxpayer Protection Pledge"

This pledge was signed by President Bush and 258 members of Congress in 2004. With the passage of HR 6, affectionately known as "THE CLEAN Energy Act" 32 original signees violated their respective pledges to the people of their respective states, and to the people of the United States of America. In short, the pledge read as written below:

I, [esteemed and distinguished Politician], pledge to the taxpayers of the [my district]district of the state of [my state], and to the American people that I will: ONE, oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses; and TWO, oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.

The following is the list the violators. It is up to the people of their Congressional Districts to hold these politicians at their word, or toss them out in the 2008 primaries. These people received many votes based on signing these pledges, and by passing HR6, they have literally told the people they don't need their votes any more.

Wake up Americans. Fire these back-pedaling, lying representatives. Voice your opinion at the ballot box during the primaries. Don't let them get through to the general election.

markbureau

Sources: Club for Growth
Tax Policy Center .org

Enough Said!
markbureau

• The prescription drug bill
• The highway bill that included the infamous bridge
• The energy bill that included more than 4500 earmarks.
• A defense bill that included ONE MILLION DOLLARS for the International Toilet convention and their research on waterless toilets.
• Earmarks for the renovation of two observatories one of which will be become a musuem for scientific research on outer space.

Sorry guy. I didn't pick off anyone. I voted in Georgia where my Congressman was unopposed, and I had no Senators. My votes were all local. You can point fingers all you like. I don't like the results any more than you do, but I didn't hold a gun to the gang's collective heads and force them to compromise on Miguel Estrada and Charles Pickering. I didn't hold a gun their heads and ask them to come up with an amnesty bill. I certainly didn't ask for John McCain's lecture on how Americans wouldn't pick lettuce even for fifty dollars an hour.

If you think free thinkers are supposed tow a party line and give up their individualism and conservatism for a cause that is 180 degrees polar opposite of what they believe in in order to reward a bunch of spineless RINOs for the sake of "its better than Pelosi" then you sir are part of the problem.

This board is called Free Republic, I thought we as freepers didn't sell out to anyone, regardless if they had an R on their shirts or not.

markbureau