Nashua Telegraph: Hodes: I’ll back bill to tax Wall St. execs who got bonuses over $400,000

MANCHESTER – The chorus of politicians railing against Wall Street executive bonuses gained another voice in U.S. Rep. Paul Hodes.

The Democratic legislator announced Wednesday he will support a bill that aims to tax any firm that took a government bailout and then paid individual bonuses exceeding $400,000.

Hodes, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat that Republican Judd Gregg will vacate in 2010, discussed his take on Wall Street after meeting several diners at the Puritan Backroom restaurant in Manchester’s north end.

Executives of big banking firms are “disconnected” from the “kitchen tables of America,” where families are struggling to pay bills, Hodes said. And while Wall Street firms have rebounded after accepting government bailouts, many homeowners still can’t pay mortgages and small businesses are having difficulty securing loans, he said.

A tax on executive bonuses was first proposed last week by Democratic U.S. Sens. Jim Webb and Barbara Boxer.

Any Wall Street firm that accepted more than $5 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program would be subject to a 50 percent tax on every employee bonus in 2009 that exceeded $400,000, if the bill passes. The tax would be used to reduce the national debt.

Hodes said he didn’t know yet if any other Representative has submitted a similar bill in the House, but said he would introduce one or support an existing measure.

Congressional Democrats – and, until recently, President Obama – have criticized Wall Street executives for receiving lucrative bonuses not long after helping cause the recession and then needing taxpayer money to keep their companies afloat.

But Obama softened his criticism Wednesday, saying that two particular Wall Street leaders are “savvy businessmen” and he doesn’t begrudge “success or wealth.” Those executives, JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein, recently received $17 million and $9 million bonuses, respectively.

Hodes, though, said “it’s too bad” that Wall Street executives whose companies needed TARP money didn’t forgo bonuses entirely “to understand what their actions have caused.” Hodes voted against the $700 billion Wall Street bailout in September 2008.

He has also accepted campaign donations from Goldman Sachs employees for his Senate campaign. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that follows politics, Hodes’ campaign has accepted $13,600 from Goldman Sachs employees or those related to the employees.

The center uses Federal Election Commission filings. A Telegraph review of FEC records found that Goldman Sachs employees had donated $11,100 to the Hodes Senate campaign, less than the center’s figure.

But Center for Responsive Politics spokesman Dave Levinthal said that discrepancy could result from his organization’s staff reviewing campaign filings more closely than the FEC. The center will connect an individual’s donation to a corporation if the individual is a spouse or child of a corporation employee, Levinthal said.

That might explain a discrepancy in totals offered by the center and the FEC on the Senate campaign of Republican Kelly Ayotte.

According to the center, Ayotte accepted $12,000 in campaign donations from people connected to Bank of America, a Wall Street firm that took TARP money and has since paid executive bonuses.

A Telegraph review of FEC records found only one such contribution by an individual, for $2,400. But FEC records show that Ayotte accepted four individual contributions totaling $9,600 from people affiliated with Merrill Lynch, which merged with Bank of America in 2008.

Brooks Kochvar, Ayotte’s campaign manager, said his office’s records show no contributions by Bank of America PACs, and only one individual contribution totaling $2,400.

Hodes said “it doesn’t matter to me who contributes to my campaign.” He added that if he was “in the pocket” of Wall Street, he wouldn’t have opposed the bailout and wouldn’t support taxing executive bonuses.

Kochvar commented only on Hodes wanting to tax executive bonuses.

“Hodes’ solution to everything is to increase taxes. Congress should focus on getting the bailout money back from banks and return it to the taxpayers,” Kochvar said.

Bill Binnie, another Republican running for Senate, said in a statement: “The Democrats are good at coming up with new ways to tax people. We should be encouraging businesses to grow. Our focus should be on creating jobs. We should be looking forward not backward.”

The campaigns of Republicans Ovide Lamontagne and Jim Bender couldn’t be reached for comment.