Dear AIG,

“It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products.” 

The New York Times on Tuesday ran an op-ed entitled “Dear A.I.G., I Quit!.”  It’s the real letter of resignation of Jake DeSantis, executive vice president of AIG’s financial products unit.  Read it here.

The sections of the company in which DeSantis worked, the equity and commodity units, were consistently profitable to the tune of over $100 million a year.  His bonus amounted to $742,000, and he’s giving it to charity.

I’m sure he wasn’t the first to resign over the Congressional and media attention that AIG has been recieving lately.  He probably won’t be the last either.  The news cites death threats to AIG employees regularly now.  Now we’re seeing the ill-effects of bad economic policy.

Congress should have never have created the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in the first place and the Treasury shouldn’t have been allowed to purchase shares in banks or bail out insurance companies with the money.  FreedomWorks has opposed all of the bail outs.  The TARP violated the non-delegation principle in the Constitution.  By handing over such broad authority to the Treasury through the TARP, Congress failed to offer enough guidance to the executive branch and in effect gave them the power to spend the money for purposes unintended.  

If Congress hadn’t been spending billions of taxpayer dollars to bail out failing institutions, then there wouldn’t have been any bonuses at AIG paid for by American taxpayers.  Mr. DeSantis may have kept his job after bankruptcy or would have found a new one, but either way he wouldn’t have to put up with the stress or the threats that the AIG executives must be feeling and hearing now.