Not content with just one Worst Company in America victory, AIG is going for back-to-back titles by trying to give out $198 million in bonuses in March.

The White House, being the buzzkill that it is, is telling the bailed-out company to trim those back a bit, the Washington Post reports:

Kenneth Feinberg, the U.S. Treasury’s point man for compensation, has indicated he wants future retention payments reduced at the troubled AIG Financial Products unit, according to a new report from the special inspector general overseeing the government’s financial rescue program.

A public furor erupted earlier this year when AIG paid about $168 million in retention bonuses to employees at Financial Products, the unit whose complex deals nearly wrecked the insurance giant last fall. The same contracts that guaranteed those awards also promised similar payments in March 2010, and for months AIG has been scrambling to redraw those agreements in hopes of preventing another public debacle.

What sucks here is that AIG employees obviously deserve these retention bonuses, what with every other corporation in America that aspires to Worst Company status falling all over one another to recruit them away. If AIG wants to keep its magic going, the company — and the taxpayers — needs to pay the hefty price tag to keep those miracle workers under the AIG banner.

AIG Advised to Limit Its Next Round of Bonuses [Washington Post]

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