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http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1586/show
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/business/20bailout.html?_r=1&hp
Despite questions about the legality of the retroactive 90 percent levy, Democrats and some Republicans said the tax on bonuses for traders, executives and bankers earning more than $250,000 was the quickest way to show angry Americans that Congress intended to recoup the extra dollars. Even backers of the measure noted it was an extraordinary step.
This bill seems to be nothing more than a copout at letting the bonuses be paid out in the first place. More importantly, it's pretty stupid and highly unconstitutional as a bill of attainder.
“It’ll impact tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of people,” said Alan Johnson, managing director at Johnson Associates, a compensation consulting firm in New York, noting that the tax would apply to a bonus recipient with family income of more than $250,000. “If you’re a receptionist and your husband is a doctor, your $5,000 bonus just vaporized. It’s not just the C.E.O.’s.”
This tax, by the way, doesn't account for the rest of the income taxes that will be paid out.
The effort to impose the tax was led by the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, who just days earlier had expressed reluctance at using the tax code for this purpose. Mr. Rangel has also sought donations from A.I.G. for a public policy institute at City College in New York that will bear his name.
But on Thursday Mr. Rangel said that the executives were “getting away with murder.”
“They are getting paid for the destruction they have caused our communities,” he said.
Bank executives, who requested anonymity because they did not want to further alienate lawmakers, said their employees were on edge and many would face severe financial hardship if they were severely taxed on money already paid.
Lol, politics.
I understand that many people will probably dismiss this as punishing people that deserve it. Indeed, AIG is a stupid organization for taking tax money and giving it to their CEOs. But firstly, isn't it pretty dumb of Congress to a) reward bad decisions and punish good ones (through the bailout) then b) punish people who made bad decisions and people who made good ones?
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The income tax used to be unconstitutional (and rightly so). What a long way we've fallen, and yet how much faller we will still fall.
The bailout is the dumbest idea ever. Can't run a successful financial business? NO PROBLEM HERE'S MORE MONEY!
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imo, they should have done something about the bailout money when they passed it, now what they are doing is completely political. Obama is just trying to play the role of the hero.
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i thought the tax on bonuses was only applied to companies that received $$$ from the government stimulus package
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You have to step back and look at the bigger picture.
Reward a dozen bad CEOs in return to protect the livelyhood of tens of thousands of innocent workers and their families..
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On March 20 2009 14:01 fearus wrote:
You have to step back and look at the bigger picture.
Reward a dozen bad CEOs in return to protect the livelyhood of tens of thousands of innocent workers and their families..
No it isn't the 'bigger picture' that needs to be looked at. It is CEOs who need to look at the squalor based life they are living. Yes I understand capitalism, they worked to get where they are, but the income difference between people like them and blue collar workers is absurd.
I dare someone to say what I believe is Socialism or Communism - you'll prove that you have no idea either system works. My statement does nothing that point out that CEOs ARE the problem because this country rewards greed and social networks more then it does personal work and education
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On March 20 2009 14:05 Railz wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2009 14:01 fearus wrote:
You have to step back and look at the bigger picture.
Reward a dozen bad CEOs in return to protect the livelyhood of tens of thousands of innocent workers and their families.. No it isn't the 'bigger picture' that needs to be looked at. It is CEOs who need to look at the squalor based life they are living. Yes I understand capitalism, they worked to get where they are, but the income difference between people like them and blue collar workers is absurd. I dare someone to say what I believe is Socialism or Communism - you'll prove that you have no idea either system works. My statement does nothing that point out that CEOs ARE the problem because this country rewards greed and social networks more then it does personal work and education
In a truly capitalist system, they wouldn't be getting bailed out by the government. In a truly capitalist system, they wouldn't have all sorts of government programs in place that ALLOW them to be lazy and mismanage their business (see: FDIC). Don't mistake the modern United States for an even remotely capitalistic economic system. We're just somewhat less socialist than most other first-world countries.
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On March 20 2009 13:40 Ingenol wrote:
The bailout is the dumbest idea ever. Can't run a successful financial business? NO PROBLEM HERE'S MORE MONEY! hmm yeah good point i bet nobody ever thought of that before. gee had you spoken up maybe we wouldn't be in this mess
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United States20667 Posts
Blooooooooooody hell retarded tax.
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On March 20 2009 14:22 Ingenol wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2009 14:05 Railz wrote:On March 20 2009 14:01 fearus wrote:
You have to step back and look at the bigger picture.
Reward a dozen bad CEOs in return to protect the livelyhood of tens of thousands of innocent workers and their families.. No it isn't the 'bigger picture' that needs to be looked at. It is CEOs who need to look at the squalor based life they are living. Yes I understand capitalism, they worked to get where they are, but the income difference between people like them and blue collar workers is absurd. I dare someone to say what I believe is Socialism or Communism - you'll prove that you have no idea either system works. My statement does nothing that point out that CEOs ARE the problem because this country rewards greed and social networks more then it does personal work and education In a truly capitalist system, they wouldn't be getting bailed out by the government. In a truly capitalist system, they wouldn't have all sorts of government programs in place that ALLOW them to be lazy and mismanage their business (see: FDIC). Don't mistake the modern United States for an even remotely capitalistic economic system. We're just somewhat less socialist than most other first-world countries.
True capitalism doesn't work. One only needs to go as far back as Rockefeller to see that. True Socialism doesn't work it, it requires the State to have a valuable resource (re: Oil). What America uses is a Mix of Capitalism with its pure (or was pure) economic strength and production to provide socialistic catching nets. Unfortunately, we never had socialistic tendencies to cap success, only to reinforce it in times of need(re: Bailout).
Monopolies shouldn't be the only thing illegal in Capitalism, unregulated greed and bailouts should be as well. (I think unions should also be as well regulated to extent because they're at fault for making the auto industry 'to big to fail'.)
No true economic system will ever work, just as one true politic system will ever work.
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On March 20 2009 14:31 yubee wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2009 13:40 Ingenol wrote:
The bailout is the dumbest idea ever. Can't run a successful financial business? NO PROBLEM HERE'S MORE MONEY! hmm yeah good point i bet nobody ever thought of that before. gee had you spoken up maybe we wouldn't be in this mess
Unfortunately I wasn't alive in the first-half and middle of the 20th century when the foundations were being set for the cyclic boom/bust economy we enjoy today. Thanks for the vote of confidence though.
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The Atlantic has a nice quote from Laurence Tribe about constitutionality of the tax:
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/03/laurence_tribe_is_taxing_aig_legal.php
Cliffnotes:
The fact that the individuals subject to the tax in its retroactive application would in principle be readily identifiable would not suffice to doom the tax either from a bill of attainder perspective or from a due process perspective. Moreover, the fact that the aim of such a tax would be manifestly regulatory and fiscal rather than punitive and condemnatory, and that the tax would be part of a measure that would be prospective as well as retroactive in its operation, would serve to blunt the force of any bill of attainder challenge.
I can't say I completely agree, as it's hard not to see a 90% tax on bonuses being anything but punitive, but I still think that if these bonuses were part of the AIG's executive contracts, they have the right to them whether or not people think they deserve them.
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On March 20 2009 18:17 only_human89 wrote:
RON PAUL 2012
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It's just a smoke screen by government to stop people asking how that shit got into the stimulus package in the first place. And the more they lie and avoid answering that question the more they will come down on AIG to keep up appearances. It's not AIGs fault for using the money in a way they stimulus agreement said they could. It's total hypocrisy on Obama's part.
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EPT
