By a vote of 328-93, the House of Representative passed a piece of legislation specifically designed for retribution, to retroactively tax at an effectively 100% rate the bonuses of anyone who makes over $250,000 and got a bonus after 12/31/08 from a compnay that received $5 billion or more in bailout money. The net result of this legislation is to “punish” those scoundrels at AIG who received their contractually agreed upon bonuses (bonuses that were stupid but perfectly legal). Those same bonuses that were expressly allowed by the same Congress that now is trying to tax that money back into the government coffers.
This quote is precious:
"Stop the thievery at Americans' expense," said House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., on the House floor before the vote.
This from a man who is one of the leaders of that gang of thieves we call the United States Congress, a group of men and women who have been handing out billions in bailout money like Halloween candy and driving our country trillions deeper in debt. Stop the thievery at Americans’ expense? They have been stealing from the American people and wasting that money for decades and now they want to declare themselves the defenders of common sense, fiscal discipline and balanced budgets? Please. Even the liberal ends of the media are starting to point out how hypocritical this whole thing is, one big case of the fox in the henhouse running for political cover and using employees at AIG as fall guys to deflect the blame.
Meanwhile we have employees of AIG getting death threats, media harassing them outside their homes, being told to hide their briefcases with the AIG logo on them. People are literally afraid that someone will find out where they work and the mob will be on them. That is how many Americans in 2009 deal with this crisis, not by pulling together but by finding someone else to blame and threaten. It is cowardly and un-American. You want to blame someone? Go to www.senate.gov and www.house.gov and talk to your elected representatives. A couple hundred million in retention bonuses is mismanagement. A couple trillion of your tax dollars thrown away is gross incompetence bordering on treason.
This whole affair is shameful. It is the very worst blending of populism gone awry, class warfare, jealously, uninformed decision making, knee jerk reaction and most of all blame deflection. The Congress of the United States is hanging employees of AIG in effigy for taking bonuses that they were permitted to receive because the bailout legislation passed by this same Congress gave them that permission!
The reason we live in a republic and not a democracy is precisely to avoid this sort of mob rule. The Founders knew that people who are self-ruled must have their base instincts and self-interest kept in check. Evan Newmark, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite commentators, said it well when he described this punitive tax like this:
This bill is much, much worse than that. It is mob rule. It is an abdication of the duty of Congress to legislate thoughtfully and with due process. And it is an act of cowardice in which what is right or wrong means nothing and what is expedient means everything.
2 comments:
I never thought I'd see the day.
The America I knew is no longer.
Steve, I knew this was the way we were headed since the election but even in my cynical nature I am amazed at how boldy and recklessly Obama is charging down this path and how lemming like so many of our fellow citizens are. Nothing worse than setting self-interest over justice.
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