As if Goldman Sachs did not already have enough image problems as the biggest pig at the Wall Street trough, it is now the most serious contender for the 2009 Marie Antoinette Award, which recognizes singular achievements in out-of-touch condescension.

Goldman has made no secret of the fact that it has set aside some $16.7 billion to be paid out to its employees as bonuses for the year 2009.  Now, this is a pretty big pile of money to have amassed just one year after coming close to a meltdown and accepting government (i.e., taxpayer) funds.   In fact, it’s more than just pretty big, it’s obscene.

It’s big enough and obscene enough to make ordinary people who are struggling to find jobs, pay the bills, keep the house out of foreclosure, etc. want to do things to Goldman that usually only happen in chainsaw movies.  After all, these people figure, we pulled their butts out of the fire with taxpayer money and now they’re rubbing our noses in these outlandish bonuses only a year later.

These violent urges are compounded by the knowledge that Goldman’s excesses are part of what brought about the severe unemployment situation, the cratering housing market and the all but invisible credit market.

This rage is strong enough that it apparently has reached the ivory towers of the executive suites of Wall Street and caused some (minor) tremors.  What if the politicians who up to now have been in our pockets grab hold of this rage and use it to start fencing us in?  Or the more likely scenario: What if this rage becomes so strong that these politicians have no choice but to grab hold of it, even if they don’t want to leave our pockets?

In the face of this, Goldman’s CEO Lloyd Blankfein apologized, sort of.  Just recently he said, “We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret.  We apologize.”

But as we all know, words are cheap.  So Goldman decided to put some of its money where its mouth is.  It announced that it would be taking $500 million of that $16.7 billion and using it to support some 10,000 small businesses.  That is, it would take $100 million a year for 5 years to finance that support.

Do the calculation and you come up with 3% of the bonus pool.  I’m sure Goldman is hoping that this pittance will satisfy the rabble and calm them down. 

However, for a company that has no trouble whatsoever putting two and two together, it is likely that this gesture will prove to be a rather large miscalculation.  It’s hard to think of any act in the last few years that smacks more of “Let them eat cake” condescension.

And so, my friends, it is for these crumbs that Goldman is crowned the winner of the 2009 Marie Antoinette Award.  

May Goldman’s reputation for insufferable condescension live as long as the award’s namesake.  And may that reputation start to have a corrosive effect on the only place for which Goldman has any real feeling—its bottom line.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.  But no, it’s not likely that even the great man is going to be able to bring health care reform legislation to President Obama’s desk by Christmas.

The man that history has picked to be Santa in this particular case doesn’t look the part in any obvious way.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a tall, thin Mormon from Nevada, not a stout ruddy deliveryman from north of the Arctic Circle.

But even if Reid was blessed with Santa’s perennially amazing ability to get ready in one month’s time span the wishes and desires of millions upon millions of fervent believers, he still would have a major problem and one that would stump even Santa himself: Reid has to deal with 99 other senators, each of whom thinks he or she should be the one delivering all those goodies, or else be the one who gets to decide who’s naughty and therefore shouldn’t receive anything at all.

And let’s not forget that within the hallowed chamber of the Senate, like something out of a Dickensian nightmare, reside not one but a whole crowd of Ebenezer Scrooges whose response to Santa’s wanting to brighten the spirits of millions of uninsureds is a resounding “Bah, humbug!”

These Scrooges not only have the ability to drive an entire country full of poor Tiny Tims to distraction, but some are also actively plotting to tie Santa up in knots so badly that there is no chance whatsoever that he will be able to deliver the presents for which so many have been yearning for the last year, if not much, much longer.

The problem for Reid is that if he can’t convince at least 60 of his fellow senators how important it is to get the raw material for the presents out of the storeroom and into the workshop, he’s going to miss the very slim window of opportunity between Congress’s Thanksgiving recess and its Christmas recess.  In that case, he’ll never be able to deliver the package to President Obama in time for the holiday celebration.

But almost as daunting as getting the raw materials into the workshop is getting a finished product to put into the sleigh.  There are plenty of obstacles and slippery ice every step of the way.

First of all, those senatorial Scrooges will have unlimited opportunity to take their whacks at the unfinished product as it is being crafted.  And once they’ve finished working it over (if they do), then whatever remains has to be taken by Reid to an interim area where the sometimes mischievous elves from the House will try their hand at refashioning what the Senate has given a pounding, hoping to change it so that President Obama will get more of what he really wants for Christmas.

Then the thing has to be carted back to both the Senate and the House and put on display for all to see and decide if that’s what they want, after all. 

So you can see the deck is pretty stacked against Santa’s being able to deliver by Christmas. The danger is that even if he got the package ready after Christmas, there’s a strong possibility that he’d be so weighted down at that point by having had to eat this compromise and swallow that amendment that he just would not be able to get the sleigh off the ground.  The holiday magic would be gone.

And being stuck in the sleigh is when Santa would be particularly vulnerable.  Those senatorial Scrooges have plenty of allies (men and women who like to masquerade in 18^th century costumes and carry pitchforks) who would then have Santa right where they want him.  

For your sake, Virginia, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.  These pitchforkers are the sort who would take a lot of pleasure in saying, “I killed Santa.”

The House came through for President Obama in his drive for health care reform, but that may be the last piece of good news on the subject that the president has for quite a while.

Even though the vote on the House bill, H.R. 3962, was a squeaker, passing only by a 220-215 tally, it was still a historic moment.  Yet, that is hardly the kind of momentum necessary to spur any kind of fast action in the Senate that the president wants.  

It was a nail-biter in the House right until the vote on Saturday evening, Nov. 7, with a flurry of compromises being made during the day, particularly on the issue of coverage for abortion.  In the end, the Democrats managed to siphon off one Republican vote, a representative from Louisiana.  Thirty-nine Democrats voted against it.

While there was a lot of high-fiving and cheering among the House Democratic leadership, particularly among those members who have been carrying the torch for universal health coverage for years if not decades, the White House is starkly aware that this fight is nowhere near over. 

The reality is that the finished product—if there is one—is going to look very little like the House bill.  The components of the Senate bills that Sen. Harry Reid is trying to conflate into one bill are already vastly different than the House bill. 

Then Reid is going to have the problem of getting the 60 votes necessary to even bring the bill to the Senate floor.  If and when it reaches the floor, the debate and chance for offering amendments are pretty much open-ended.

At this point I’d say that having a bill on President Obama’s desk by Christmas looks a lot more like wishful thinking than something that is likely to happen.   

But then, Virginia, it is the Senate and it is Washington we’re dealing with, after all, so you never know.