The outrage expressed by President Barack Obama and members of Congress over American International Group's plan to pay outrageous employee bonuses totaling $165 million — after taking a $170 billion bailout from taxpayers — is right on the mark.

While AIG stressed that contractual obligations require that they disperse the bonuses, Congress is right to look into these contracts to determine if there is any recourse for taxpayers.

AIG, under pressure from Obama Saturday, agreed to revamp its bonus system in the future. You think? Since when does taking your company (and the nation's financial system) to the brink of collapse justify a bonus? It's just plain wrong.

And it does little to build consumer confidence over how these billions in bailouts are regulated.

In this case, Congress shares some of the blame for pushing the $700 billion bailout bill through last fall under the Bush administration without enough restrictions or controls. This at a time when executive compensation was already under fire.

Thankfully, some improvements have been made. But with billions currently in the pipeline to help ailing companies, yet again coming from taxpayers' pockets, the lesson of AIG should be clear: Not a dime of taxpayers' money should be given without the utmost transparency, strict conditions and tough questions being asked early on.

Let's hope Congress has learned its lesson — it's one taxpayers simply can't afford to see repeated.