Conservatives Call BP Fund an Obama 'Shakedown'

(June 17) -- Some conservatives who've complained that President Barack Obama isn't doing enough about the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico now say he's gone too far. They're criticizing the $20 billion fund Obama just squeezed out of BP.

After meeting with the oil company's leaders at the White House Wednesday, the president announced that the escrow account will "provide substantial assurance that the claims people and businesses have will be honored" and said $20 billion "is not a cap." Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw payments to 9/11 victims, will decide who gets the money from BP.

The top Republican on the House panel that summoned BP CEO Tony Hayward to testify today opened the hearing by apologizing to him. Rep. Joe Barton of Texas said he was "ashamed" of what happened at the White House Wednesday and called it a "tragedy of the first proportion" that a private company would be subjected to a "$20 billion shakedown" that's really a government "slush fund." Barton said it was unprecedented and illegal.

UPDATE: Hours later, Barton apologized for his apology."I apologize for using the term 'shakedown' with regard to yesterday's actions at the White House in my opening statement this morning, and I retract my apology to BP," he said.

Barton's language echoed remarks Rep. Tom Price of Georgia made late Wednesday. The Republican Study Committee chief blasted the escrow account as an example of Obama's "Chicago-style shakedown politics."

"These actions are emblematic of a politicization of our economy that has been borne out of this administration's drive for greater power and control," Price charged.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution blogger Jay Bookman noted that Price and the RSC issued a statement a day earlier urging the president to "finally take charge of this disaster and show some real leadership."

"It's another iteration of the GOP's wimp/thug complex regarding Obama. Yesterday he's Steve Urkel; today he's Mike Tyson, out to steal poor Tom Price's lunch money," Bookman wrote.

Like Price, Rep. Michelle Bachmann started to criticize the BP disaster fund even before it was announced. The Minnesota Republican called it a "redistribution-of-wealth fund" during a Heritage Foundation luncheon Tuesday in Washington, hours before Obama's Oval Office speech.

She also told The Washington Post's David Weigel she does believe BP should pay for all the damage it's done, but warned against taking advantage of the embattled oil giant.

"If I was the head of BP, I would let the signal get out there -- 'We're not going to be chumps, and we're not going to be fleeced.' And they shouldn't be. They shouldn't have to be fleeced and made chumps to have to pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest -- they've got to be legitimate claims," the tea party darling declared.

Bachmann also accused the president of demonizing BP. "He makes them evil, and what we've got to ask ourselves is: Do we really want to be paying $9 for a gallon of gas? Because that could be the final result of this," she said.

"Whose side is she on?" asked Tarryl Clark, Bachmann's Democratic opponent in Minnesota's conservative 6th Congressional District. Clark said Bachmann was giving "advice to the corporate honchos at BP on how to keep themselves from being 'fleeced' by the American people."

"I'm not here to shill for BP," Bachmann insisted last night on CNN's "John King, USA." She said she just doesn't "want these payouts to become political."

"We don't think it's a good idea for the federal government to see private industry as essentially a piggy bank for the federal government," Bachmann explained, likening the BP fund to federal bailouts of banks, insurance company AIG and automakers. She also said payment of claims should be handled by courts, not a czar.

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey agreed. Armey -- another top tea party activist -- contended that Obama doesn't have the legal power to make BP pay.

"The point is, by what constitutional authority does the president of the United States say, 'I will decide what redress will be made to the victims of this catastrophe, by this firm' and 'I will decide who are the victims and who are not the victims'? The Constitution doesn't give that authority to the executive branch," said the Freedom Works co-chairman.

The governor of one state at the center of the crisis expressed concern about how the huge disaster-aid account would affect BP's bottom line.

"I do worry that this idea of making them make a huge escrow fund is going to make it less likely that they'll pay for everything. They need their capital to drill wells. They need their capital to produce income so they can pay that income to our citizens in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, and to pay for all the damages done," Mississippi's Republican Gov. Haley Barbour told Fox's Greta Van Susteren.

"BP needs to pay, is supposed to pay, must pay every penny. But this escrow bothers me that it's going to make them less able to pay us what they owe us," he said.

Daily Kos blogger Jed Lewinson interpreted Barbour's logic this way: "If we make BP pay, then BP might not be able to afford to pay. So we shouldn't make them pay, so that way they can pay.

"If you're confused by Barbour's comments, maybe this will help clear things up," Lewinson added. "Before running for public office, he was a lobbyist. For big oil."