The president has put a halt to the bill to tax bonuses up to 90% of employees of companies who’ve received bailout money. Clearer heads have prevailed in Washington among the Senate as they see the fine line that they are crossing with this one. The President said on 60 minutes that the tax code should not be used to punish a specific group of people and we should not be passing laws that target a handful of individuals. I apologize for thinking the President was for this as previously stated.
Only goes to show that the White House and the Congress are often at odds and any one president cannot be blamed for all the stupid and insane stuff that comes out of Washington DC. The President has his hands full trying to foster a bi-partisan atmosphere there as there are often disagreements within the parties themselves. I really hopes he makes some head-way with that because the rifts in Washington DC has been stifling this country’s progress for too long now. Time for a change indeed.
What the House has done is in fact unconstitutional. The US constitution prohibits the passing of any Bill of Attainder. Which is a legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial. What were they thinking? Trying to send this country back to the dark ages? Maybe we need to bring back the guillotine?
Bring back the guillotine?
Then we would have to start with them because they’re not doing their jobs! Trying to clear up their error by punishing others after they realized their mistake. Or was it a mistake? They knew the bonuses were there and did nothing. What they didn’t expect was the public outcry.
Also in the news was the return of about $30million by some top executives at AIG. How many of you folks who have been sending death threats and calling for their heads would have done that huh? Can we stop asking for their names to be revealed now?
No taxation without
Its been my limited experience that politicians don’t know how to mix the business of making money with the business of running the government. But today the US government owns 80% of AIG.
Sometimes a CEO has to make a tough decision that he/she knows won’t be popular but might bring more revenue into the company or improve productivity. This way of thinking is simply counter-intuitive to a politician as he/she always seeks to make the ‘popular’ choice. With elections to consider, tough decisions are generally left for the ‘next guy’. So when I heard that the house had passed a law to tax these big bonuses that have gotten ‘main street’ in an uproar, I didn’t get the warm and fuzzies. It was more like a sense of foreboding.
I never gave any credance to the talk of socialism, communism, fascism or any other isms that pop up when some right wingers talked about our new President. But I must admit that I’m beginning to wonder.
AIG CEO
Most of main street, who don’t get bonuses, ofcourse will think this is a great idea. It’s revenge of the middle class! How dare these people take the tax payer bailout money and use it to pay bonuses. To use the phrase of AIG CEO, its distasteful but as he said it was an existing obligation that the company had. The government should have insisted that the bonuses be handled differently before we even gave companies like AIG any money. Their after the fact behavior here strengthening my point that they are not business minded. The horse is already through the gate (or whatever it is that expression says, you get the point).
But is this taxing of the bonuses a good idea? ‘Main street’ hates these people, why? Because they went to school, studied hard, worked their butts off some sacrifice time with their family so they can be the best at their job so much so that their company encourages them to stay by paying them retention bonuses. Why hate them. Most of them are regular folks working hard to provide for their families, some with the fear of losing their jobs. ok so they might have some more savings than you do and might have to take their child out of private school. Come on, don’t hate them ‘main street’. Did they start these bonus policies? No, they’re employees enjoying the benefits.
So because of the uproar, our politicians wanting to be re-elected are on the road to setting what I believe to be a bad precedence. A little government control becomes a little more and then we have some government control and then some more and then some more and where does it stop. Will ‘main street’ outrage be able to stop it in time?
I’ve been enjoying our new President. He’s tackling some serious issues and making some tough calls (not your typical politician). He’s pushing some long overdue changes and I’m excited to see what this country will accomplish under him. And he does this all while remaining totally the coolest president! But is he planning to change things so much that it will no longer become advantageous to move up into a higher tax bracket? I wonder.
Happy Birthday
Today marks a year since I started my blog theyear2020! I’ve published 43 posts, slightly less than my 1 per week goal. There hasn’t been a theme as I’ve written about just about anything that’s on my mind. For the new year however I will attempt to inject a unifying theme to my posts. Emphasis on attempt.
The top posts over that period, strangely enough, include
The Appeal of Green Beer
things that remind me of my childhood
Culture War
Thank you readers, especially those few that return to read the latest post.
