House passes bill taxing AIG and other bonuses
Wow. Who would have thought it would come to this? The House has passed a bill to recapture the bonuses paid to AIG employees through taxes. One small step for taxpayers, one giant leap for socialism. I’m pretty sure this kind of law is unconstitutional but I don’t sit on the Supreme Court so what do I know?
Don’t get me wrong. I think it sucks that the people that ran these companies into the ground get paid a bonus. Unfortunately, though, the bonuses written into the employees’ contract. I might not like that contract but there are lots of contracts I don’t like. Remember the Detroit “jobs bank?” The “jobs bank” was where laid off autoworkers could go to get paid for doing nothing. So as part of restructuring GM to get get it’s government bailout the “jobs bank” was eliminated. Did we try to collect back pay for those laid off workers who had utilized the “jobs bank?” Of course not. I’m sure it would be equally popular and equally easy to pass a tax on “jobs bank” pay. But it didn’t happen because it’s unconstitutional.
The tax bill sets a dangerous precedent for “taxing groups we don’t like.” This idea is nothing new. We’ve been doing it for years with extra taxes on smokers, drinkers, trans-fat eaters, and other “dirty” classes. But this time however we are targeting individuals with our taxes. Can you imagine a “people who got away with murder tax” or “baseball players with fat heads tax” targetting OJ Simpson and Barry Bonds? Both of these people cost taxpayers alot of money in legal fees, should we not try to recapture that with some taxes? Perhaps that really loud guy who has those TV commercials: “Billy Mays.” I and others view him through our government bailout funded DTV converter boxes. So he made tons of money and annoyed millions of viewers at a huge cost to the American taxpayer. How about a tax on him too?
It’s a slippery slope. At the bottom is socialism, I hope we don’t go that far…
