Posted by
flagwaver on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 11:09:33 PM
Everyone seems to be burning with outrage over the bonuses paid to the AIG employees, per their signed contracts with the company. The White House has feigned outrage over the situation, the President is pulling a Sgt. Schultz, "I saw nothink!", and Sen. Charles Grassley is running around telling people who got bonuses to kill themselves. Republicans and Democrats alike are trying to ride the populist wave of anger at the payment of these bonuses to score political points against their opponents, and all are taking part in what Michelle Malkin so expertly described as the "kabuki theatre" of outrage.
But what has me outraged is not the bonuses, because I cannot care less how much these people make; what bothers me is the rhetoric emanating from the halls of Congress. We have Sen. Chuck Schumer telling us that he wants to tax the bonuses up to 100%, a group of Congress members threatening to pass legislation to allow it, and one idiot on the Greta Van Susteren show saying that she thinks the Congress can legally hold the AIG employees to a retroactive law.
Article One, Section Nine, Clause Three says: No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed. Article One, Section Nine, Clause Four states: No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken. In other words, the Congress cannot pass laws that single out individuals or groups and cannot order taxes to be levied against individuals. These "guardians of the realm" are trying to do something that is obviously illegal and unconstitutional, and too few people are even batting an eye over it. Everyone is so busy reveling in their righteous anger at the "greedy" executives that they are ignoring a serious threat to their freedoms.
If the government can, in broad daylight no less, threaten to abrogate the Constitution in this manner, and if they can attempt to effectively blackmail the CEO of AIG to turn over the names of the recipients to Barney Frank, what does that bode for the rest of us? What will they do when no one is watching, if they will try this in front of the cameras? This behavior is the real outrage of the AIG scandal, and it should scare you to death.