Think about it. The DNC caused this mess, lied about it, then pointed fingers at the people who work at AIG and finally enacted law to pick pockets of private individuals.
Look - I don't think that anyone should be given a bonus in a company that loses money at the billions, but to enact law to dig into someone's pockets like that? It's Bolshevism. It shows the level of thought current legislators hold.
Malkin had it right:
First, they came for AIG bonuses
The House is set to vote today on the retroactive, confiscatory 90 percent tax on bailout-funded bonuses. Lawmakers say the tax will apply to Fannie/Freddie bonuses. But who knows what the hell will end up in this Chicken Little measure:
The House is scheduled to vote today on a bill that would levy a 90 percent tax on bonuses paid to employees with family incomes above $250,000 at companies that have received at least $5 billion in government bailout money.
“We figured that the local and state governments would take care of the other 10 percent,” said Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.
Rangel said the bill would apply to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, among others, while excluding community banks and other smaller companies that have received less bailout money…The top two members of the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday announced a bill that would impose a 35 percent excise tax on the companies paying the bonuses and a 35 percent excise tax on the employees receiving them. The taxes would apply to all companies receiving government bailout money, but they are clearly geared toward AIG.
The NYPost rightly warns that such politically expedient power grabs are courting catastrophe:
Now, a bonus witch-hunt will satisfy many souls but it surely won’t help solve Liddy’s problem.
Which, obviously, is America’s problem, too.
And such action threatens substantially to damage other institutions now being swept up in it.
Four big New York employers each, it needs to be noted, a major local tax-revenue generator seem to be squarely in Pelosi and Rangel’s sights: Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
Many banks entered the federal bailout program because of intense pressure from Washington and many only after being assured that confiscatory taxation and other ex post facto penalties would be off the table.
How badly any of them will be hurt depends on the fine print in the legislation now at issue. Certainly it would be useful if those details got a complete airing before Congress acts.
But politics, hypocrisy, resentment and fear have good sense on the run.
And now this:
Scorn Trails A.I.G. Executives, Even in Their Driveways
The A.I.G. executive who was nicknamed “Jackpot Jimmy” by a New York tabloid walked up the driveway toward his bay-windowed house in Fairfield, Conn., on Thursday afternoon. "How do I feel?” said the executive, James Haas, repeating the question he had just been asked. “I feel horrible. This has been a complete invasion of privacy."
Mr. Haas walked on, his pink shirt a burst of color on a slate-gray afternoon. The words came haltingly. "You have to understand,” he said, “there are kids involved, there have been death threats. ..." His voice trailed off. It looked as if he was fighting back tears.
"I didn’t have anything to do with those credit problems,” said Mr. Haas, 47. “I told Mr. Liddy” — Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G., the insurance giant — “I would rescind my retention contract.”
There's a scent of social warfare in the air, and the potential consequence is written on the wall in red.
Will anyone hold the politicians responsible for incitement if someone does get physically hurt?
No comments:
Post a Comment