Bankrupt AIG Underwrote McCain's 'Reform Institute'
John McCain is making a big show of criticizing the government "bailout" of insurance giant AIG. But it turns out that AIG,
which received $85 billion in US tax dollars earlier this week, is one of the largest donors to McCain's pet think tank, the
comically named "Reform Institute," which he co-founded in 2001 "in direct response to the millions of Americans who,
during the 2000 presidential campaign, expressed profound disillusionment with corrupt fundraising activities."
Apparently, AIG was so troubled over the issue of corrupt fundraising activities that they loaded in as one of the top VIP
donors in McCain's nonprofit think-tank, whose website lists AIG in the "over $50,000" donor category--although exactly
how much over that $50,000 is still unclear. Nor is it clear why AIG had any business donating so much money to a
think tank whose work in no way overlapped with the insurance company's--unless, of course, that money was just meant
to gain access to McCain.
The "Reform Institute" has taken a lot of heat as a front organization designed to funnel money to McCain's political
career. As Ari Berman wrote, McCain's campaign co-chair, Rick Davis, served as the president of the nonprofit Reform
Institute for three years, earning $395,000 in salary. Davis also headquartered his lobbying firm, Davis Manafort, in the
Reform Institute's offices at that time. He is just one of several McCain people who passed through the Reform Institute's
revolving door while McCain prepared for the 2008 campaign. McCain formally stepped down from his own institute in
2005, but he remains deeply linked to the Reform Institute to this day.
So when McCain declared this week that "The government was forced to commit $85 billion" to his mega-donor AIG, the
question becomes, "What forced you to do it?" The American taxpayers never got a red cent in donations from AIG--but
now, they're being forced by people like McCain, whose career profited from AIG donations, to buy his backer's massively
indebted trash heap in what can only be described as the worst business deal in this nation's history, or the worst
example of crony nationalization. AIG isn't just funding McCain's policy think tank, it's also quite literally thinking for the
presidential hopeful. Martin Feldstein, who serves on the board of AIG, is one of McCain's top economic advisers. Earlier
this month, Feldstein gushed in the Wall Street Journal over McCain's plans to cut taxes even further, and to shift
healthcare costs from employers to employees in a "tax credit" scheme that many believe will solely benefit insurance
companies, at the expense of workers. Since AIG is--or was--the world's largest insurance company, it stood to gain from
McCain's policies.
The one thing Feldstein does understand is insurance. Feldstein and his cronies at AIG essentially bought themselves an
insurance policy--you might call this type of insurance "in case our insanely corrupt, hyper-leveraged operation should
ever go bankrupt" insurance--with donations like the "over $50,000" given to McCain's Reform Institute. That insurance
paid off handsomely and like clockwork with the government's $85 billion nationalization. It's exactly the kind of insurance
policy deal that every American has dreamed about, but never known. And never will know.
