Change We Can Believe In?

According to World Net Daily President Obama’s pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, was paid a $120,830 annual salary despite reports back in August of 2009 that Feinberg would perform the job “pro bono.” Glenn Beck did a piece back then which listed all of Obama’s Czars (known at that time) and said THIS about Feinberg:

Title: Special Master on executive pay
Salary: reportedly receiving no compensation for his work.
Reports to: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
Appointed: June 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Treasury

• Named to examine compensation practices at companies that have been bailed out more than once by the federal government
• Oversaw the payouts to the families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks
• Was the chief administrator to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, which commemorates the students who died in the April 2007 shooting rampage at Virginia Tech
• Founder and managing partner of Feinberg Rozen LLP (1992 to present), law firm specializing in mediation
• Was Chief of staff for Sen. Edward Kennedy (1978 to 1980)
• While working with the Feinberg Group, donated over $150,000, nearly all of which has gone to Democratic candidates and political action committees. In 2007, donated $2,300 to 2008 presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani (R).

While no fan of the Obama “Czar” mentality that keeps these folks outside the public approval process, we need to be more singly focused on the lies we were told at the time of Feinberg’s appointment. I say focused because of what other little goodies might be hiding behind this Czar (and others), and whether he (Feinberg) really did return the money as the WND article suggests.

According to various reports it was Judicial Watch that broke this story after responses to their FOIA requests related to Feinberg started rolling in. Once the requested documents were received, Judicial Watch discovered (and went public with the news) that Feinberg WAS in fact receiving this GS-15 salary of 120K (that we were told he would not be receiving).

In JW’s story we learn that no calls to Feinberg or the Treasury Dept. were returned until AFTER they went live with proof that he was in fact being paid. Only then did a representative of Feinberg’s respond, admitting there HAD been paychecks received while adding that the money was being returned to the Fed as quickly as it was coming in:

Feinberg’s spokesman, Amy Weiss, told The Examiner that he did receive a paycheck “every two weeks, but as soon as he got it, he endorsed it over and returned it.”

Weiss did not know what the specific procedure for returning a government-issued paycheck, but she said Feinberg will still have to pay taxes on the returned paychecks “because the government considers it as a gift.” Weiss promised a follow-up call if she was able to document why the government considers a returned paycheck to be a gift on which the recipient must pay taxes.

If you believe that one, I’ve got some beachfront property in Arizona I think you’d be interested in. And…it gets worse. Continuing from the Examiner piece:

UPDATE II: Not a good day for Feinberg
Some days you get the bear. Some days the bear gets you. Feinberg was on the wrong end of that equation today. Not only are there now unanswered questions about his TARP paymaster compensation, but ProPublica reports that he has been forced to delay his timetable for Gulf Oil Spill damage claim payments.

When he took over the Gulf job, Feinberg promised to speed up the payment process to insure that individual claims would be handled within two days and those filed by businesses within seven days.

But Weiss told Pro Publica that timetable is no longer applicable:

“‘The announced 48-hour claim determination rule for individual claims, and the 7-day claim determination rule for business claims will be extended as necessary and appropriate,’ Feinberg’s spokeswoman Amy Weiss told us. ‘The policy remains to review all individual and business claims as quickly as possible.’”

“Weiss said one reason for the delays is that claimants are providing so many documents. She said lengthy and complex supporting documentation ‘requires careful scrutiny and attention to assure that each claimant will be afforded the benefit of the most generous payment.’”

[Note: Go HERE for more on the Gulf spill compensation fiasco]

It’s these sorts of things, and the ones we DON’T know about, that remind us again why allowing Czars to run the country should be required to come only after they have survived the same Senate confirmation processes required of every other high-level official in this (or any other) Administration. No accountability, an erosion of the public trust, and even the “appearance” of corruption or scandal or impropriety…these were the sorts of things Obama told us he would eliminate when he promised us the most open and transparent Administration in history.

Apparently he was lying…again.

[Note: This article originates at Liberty.Com]