Incensed taxpayers got another kick in the pants Tuesday when it was learned that employees of the American International Group ran up a $440,000 tab at a lavish California resort last week.

That's the embattled AIG you've been hearing so much about in the news. The insurance corporation that the government (the taxpayer) is bailing out to the tune of $85 billion.

On Tuesday it was revealed that about 70 of the company's "top performers" were rewarded with a week-long stay at the luxury St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif.

Top performers? This is a company that is having to borrow billions from the government to stay afloat.

The bitter pill for us commoners is that this little indulgence came after the colossal company failure and taxpayer bailout.

This is a tremendous display of snobbery and a blatant slap in the face to working Americans, who just got stuck with AIG's $85 billion bailout on Sept. 16.

While the taxpayers, stockholders and the American citizenry at large are grinding their teeth and attempting to ride out this country's economic storm, these folks are getting massages, eating banquet-style and swinging golf clubs in the ocean breeze.

During a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing Tuesday, committee chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., showed a photograph of the resort, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean. Expenses for the trip included $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 for spa treatments.

After taking Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld to task on Monday, Waxman focused in on AIG executives Tuesday.

"In each case, they refuse to accept any blame for what happened to their companies," he said. "In each case, the companies and their executives grew rich by taking on excessive risk. And in each case, their executives are walking away with millions of dollars while taxpayers are stuck with billions of dollars in costs."

According to the Washington Post, AIG chief executive Edward Liddy actually defended the vacation by saying such trips "are standard practice in our industry."

We believe it. What is hard to believe is that he used it as a defense.

Naturally, the trip to the resort didn't sit well with oversight committee members.

"They were getting their manicures, their pedicures, massages, their facials while the American taxpayers were paying their bills," said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings D-Md.

Republican Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana also weighed in, saying that the "unbridled greed" of many Wall Street executives is "so disgusting it's hard to put into words."

Adding to the insult, the luxurious stay at the resort came during the same week that the company surprised analysts by disclosing that it had already drawn down $61 billion of the federal loan.

The taxpayers have saved AIG from Chapter 11, but actions by company officials are exposing a moral bankruptcy.