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Solyndra: At It Again, Wants To Pay Bonuses




In what has to be the most outrageous display of chutzpah, a proposal filed by Solyndra’s attorneys in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware proposes to pay bonuses of from $10,000 to $50,000 to persuade key employees to stay with Solyndra. Bankruptcy attorneys said the “key employee incentive plan” tries to keep important personnel from leaving the company. Proposed bonus recipients include nine equipment engineers, six general business and finance employees, and two information technology specialists. The largest bonus, $50,000, would go to a Solyndra employee whose job title is listed as a senior director with a base salary of $206,499 per year. Two senior managers will receive bonuses of $30,000 and $32,500.

Solyndra employed about 1,100 people before it went bankrupt in 2011. Today just 84 employees remain. Bankruptcy attorneys argued that the bonus money, ranging from 8 percent to 30 percent of employees’ base annual salaries, “will motivate the eligible employees to work as hard as possible” to achieve a Chapter 11 restructuring plan and sale.

More than 50 House Republicans are pressing President Barack Hussein Obama to oppose failed Solyndra’s proposal to give bonuses to its remaining employees. The lawmakers, in a letter, called on Obama to direct the Justice Department to oppose Solyndra’s bonus proposal in ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. The letter said (among other things): “No matter how we arrived at this moment and setting aside political disagreements concerning Solyndra, the simple fact is that American taxpayers should not be footing the bill for bonuses for employees of Solyndra.”

Bankruptcy documents show that more than a dozen senior executives at Solyndra were awarded quarterly bonuses of from $55,000 to $60,000 on April 15, 2011, and again on July 8, 2011.

Let’s see. First, pay big bonuses, then file for bankruptcy, then reward failure with more bonuses, all at taxpayer expense. That is, indeed, colossal chutzpah!

But that’s just my opinion.

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3 Comments

  1. What all this is showing me is just exactly how powerful, or rather how weak past Presidents actually were, if Obama has this much authority to be able to tell the Justice Dept. what to do in situations like this, that past Presidents could have done alot more to keep Socialist Democrat controlled Houses under control and be able to do things outside of Congress, legally of course, to get things done even with influence over the private sector.

    If Bush had as much power as Obama, within Constitutional authority of the office of the President that we know Obama is violating, like sending the 534 million to Solyndra before the OMB could make their determination they qualified for the money, that right there is an empeachable offence, but if Bush had as much power and didn’t use it to stop a bunch of stuff the Democrats were getting away with, then we might not be in the fix we’re in now.

    I think what we all need to learn is, “what are the powers of the Office of the President”? What can he do and to what extent, and what can’t he do, and why? If we learn that then I think we would be much more affective in our communication with our representatives. But see, that’s just the point. We’re not supposed to have to know those kinds of things, that’s why we send men to hold Congressional office and Senatorial office because THEY are supposed to know these things FOR us. Otherwise what the hell do we need them for? We’ll take turns being our own representative like “jury duty”. You’ll get a letter in the mail telling you to show up in Washington D.C. for your turn serving as a representative, and you had better be ready. We’d all have to go to take a course somewhere where we’d be taught all the Constitutional law we’re suppose to know in order to serve. If a person didn’t then they wouldn’t be a very good representative. Or at least one that would be pushed around alot by those who did know their Constitutional authority.

    Maybe I’m answering my own question about Obama and those who are supposed to be representing us, that they either don’t know what their Constitutional powers are and don’t know what his are either, and/or are being pushed around by the likes of Boehner and friends. You can’t tell me that if you went against Boehner that you would be in to much trouble. What the hell is he going to do if you stood up to Obama and told him you were not going to let him have the authority to give anymore money to Solyndra? Send you a mean letter or scold you in that weak voice of his?

    I think we need to tell our representatives to go against Boehner and vote to not send Obama any more power or money or anything else for that matter. And if Boehner looks like he’s about to, stop him!!

    1. Your assertion that President Obama is acting outside his presidential powers is a fantasy, not grounded in fact.

  2. Why was there a need to say “President Barack Hussein Obama”? Were you attempting to throw “red meat” to bigoted Conservatives?

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