WASHINGTON - Under intense pressure from the Obama administration and Congress, the head of bailed-out insurance giant AIG declared Wednesday that some of the firm's executives have begun returning all or part of bonuses totaling $165 million. Edward Liddy, brought in last year to oversee a company that has received $182 billion in federal bailout funds, offered no details.

Buffeted by congressional outrage, he said he was angry, too, but did not respond directly when advised in pungent terms to pay to the Treasury all the money handed out last weekend in "retention payments."

"Eat it now. Take it out of your profits down the road. It's a lot sweeter now than it's gonna be later," said Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y.

Liddy slid into the witness chair at a congressional hearing as President Barack Obama sought anew to quell a furor that has bedeviled his administration since word of the bonuses surfaced over the weekend.

Obama, who took office just under two months ago, told reporters his administration was not responsible for a lack of federal supervision of AIG that preceded the company's demise, nor for the decision made last year to pay what he called "outrageous bonuses."

Still, he said, "The buck stops with me." He said that "my goal is to make sure that we never put ourselves in this kind of position again," and he disclosed the administration was consulting with Congress on the possibility of creating a new agency to govern the meltdown of large financial institutions such as AIG.

He also gave a strong vote of confidence to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who has been the target of growing Republican criticism.

Obama spoke as congressional Democrats worked on legislation designed to recoup most or all of the $165 million by exposing it to new taxes. A House vote was likely Thursday on a bill placing a 90 percent tax on the payments to top-paid executives at companies like AIG that received large bailouts from the federal government.

Republicans raised pointed questions about the extent of Geithner's advance knowledge of the bonuses, and stressed they had been locked out of discussions earlier this year when Democrats decided to jettison a provision from legislation that could have revoked the payments.

"The fact is that the bill the president signed, which protected the AIG bonuses and others, was written behind closed doors by Democratic leaders of the House and Senate. There was no transparency," said Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

Liddy's presence in a congressional hearing room was evidence of a bipartisan opposition to the bonuses, although his status as a $1-a-year CEO called out of retirement last year to try and untangle AIG's financial mess made him a less-than-easy target for expressions of outrage.

"No one knows better than I that AIG has been the recipient of generous amounts of government financial aid," he said. "We have been the beneficiary of the American people's forbearance and patients," he added, acknowledging that patience was wearing thin.

Liddy said that on Tuesday, he had "asked those who have received retention payments in excess of $100,000 or more to return at least half of those payments." Some have "already stepped forward and returned 100 percent," he added.

Asked by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., whether he would turn over the names of individuals who received the money, as well as the amounts, he said he would do so only if assured the information not be made public.

When Frank said he might seek a subpoena, Liddy said he was concerned about the safety of the employees and their families, and read aloud from a death threat received by one of them.

Frank said he would be guided in part by security considerations, but Ackerman later noted that Andrew Cuomo, the New York attorney general, was already seeking the names with a subpoena.

Liddy said he had not yet complied, sidestepped several times when asked whether he would, and finally said "it would be our intent" to do so.

But Cuomo swiftly issued a statement saying Liddy's pledge was "simply too little, too late. ... Rather than take half-measures, AIG should immediately turn over the list, which we have subpoenaed, of who got what and when."

He added, "We prefer not to go to court on this matter, but AIG is leaving us little choice. I hope the leadership at the company comes to its senses now."

Separately, AIG spokesman Mark Herr said he could not say how many executives had turned back the money. "Bear in mind, these bonuses were only just paid," he said.

He added the company may not release that information. Asked why, he responded, "Why is it cloudy today? Because sometimes it just is."

For his part, Liddy also said the Federal Reserve knew long in advance of the bonus payments and acquiesced in them, noting that officials from the independent agency attend key company meetings. But he said the same was not true of Geithner, adding, "We do our work with the Federal Reserve."

Liddy gave skeptical committee members what amounted to a tutorial in the practice of paying retention bonuses - he did not call them that - to executives.

He said the money was offered to executives in AIG's financial products section, where risky investments finally became the entire company's undoing. He said each executive was offered money to dispose of his "business book," meaning the transactions he had been in charge of handling, and thus far, the company's financial derivatives had been reduced from $2.7 trillion to $1.6 trillion.

He had decided it was worth paying the money to retain the services of executives who knew the business best, he said. And he had received legal advice that there were valid contracts requiring the payments.

"I know 165 million is a very large number. It's a very large number. In the context of 1.6 trillion ... we thought it was a good trade," he said.

Liddy added there was still a risk of financial catastrophe if the remaining $1.6 trillion in financial instruments were not disposed of properly.

But Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., angrily told the witness the contract read like "the captain and the crew of the ship reserving the lifeboats."

Liddy replied that he was not at the firm when the contracts were negotiated, and said, as he has before, that he would not have approved them.

Lynch said the terms had been put in place in December, after Liddy arrived at AIG.

But Liddy disputed that. "I take offense, Sir," he said.

"Well you take it rightly. Offense was intended," shot back Lynch.

WASHINGTON - Acting swiftly, the Democratic-led House approved a bill Thursday to slap punishing taxes on big employee bonuses at firms bailed out by taxpayers. The bill would impose a 90 percent tax on bonuses given to employees with family incomes above $250,000 at American International Group and other companies that have received at least $5 billion in government bailout money.

"We want our money back now for the taxpayers," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

Democrats led the charge in an attempt to get in front of raging public anger over the AIG bonuses, even though a provision that would have made such payouts illegal was stripped from last month's $787 billion stimulus bill by its Democratic sponsors.

The vote to tax back most of the bonuses was 328-93. Voting "yes" were 243 Democrats and 85 Republicans. It was opposed by six Democrats and 87 Republicans.

The bonuses, totaling $165 million, were paid to employees of troubled insurer AIG over the weekend, including to traders in the unit that nearly brought about the company's collapse.

The wide margin of victory came despite sharp Republican attacks calling the legislation a ploy to paper over Obama administration missteps.

Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the bill was "a political circus" to divert attention from why the administration and congressional Democrats had not done more to block the bonuses.

However, although a number of Republicans first cast "no" votes, the political appeal of the legislation apparently won the day. In the closing moments of the roll call there was a heavy GOP migration from the "no" column to the "yes" side before the final vote was called.

Democratic leaders rushed the bill to the floor under a procedure that requires a two-thirds majority for passage.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said he expected local and state governments to take the remaining 10 percent of the bonuses, nullifying the payouts.

Rangel said the bill would apply to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, among others, while excluding community banks and other smaller companies that have received less bailout money.

A competing bill is gaining support in the Senate that would impose a 35 percent excise tax on the companies paying the bonuses and a 35 percent excise tax on the employees receiving them. The taxes would apply to all companies receiving government bailout money, but they are clearly geared toward AIG.

In the House, a nonbinding resolution to express "the sense of Congress that the president is appropriately exercising all of the authorities granted by Congress" to deal with economic crisis didn't fare as well as the vote to tax the bonuses. The vote on that measure was 255-160, short of the required two thirds margin.

A tax expert said there is plenty of precedent for levying punitive taxes on behavior that lawmakers find objectionable. Robert Willens, a corporate tax lawyer in New York, cited the steep excise taxes levied on money paid to firms to keep them from launching hostile takeover bids, known as "greenmail."

"You can write very narrowly tailored laws," Willens said. "And they can do it for bonuses already paid."

The bill passed as controversy swirled around the disclosure that, while Democrats and Republicans were both railing about the AIG bonuses, Democrats were also responsible for removing a provision, originally contained in stimulus legislation, to ban such bonuses.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said Wednesday his staff agreed to requests from the administration to delete the executive pay provision that would have applied retroactively to recipients of federal aid.

However, Dodd said he was not aware of any AIG bonuses at the time the change was made.

President Barack Obama, who took office just under two months ago, told reporters Wednesday that his administration was not responsible for a lack of federal supervision of AIG that preceded the company's demise.

But Obama added, "The buck stops with me."