Yes, Virginia, Pelosi cares nothing about the Constitution!
Great piece I found at Poweline Blog that bothers to ask the question every one of our political leaders SHOULD be asking every time they vote on a bill.
Is it constitutional or not? In the case of the 90% tax on AIG bonuses, the answer is clearly HELL NO!
If the Pelosi bill is actually enacted into law (which I still think is doubtful) and upheld by the courts, there is no limit to the arbitrary power of Congress. In that event, we have no property rights and there is no Constitution–no equal protection clause, no due process clause, no impairment of contracts clause, no bill of attainder/ex post facto law clause. Instead, we are living in a majoritarian tyranny. As I explained here, there is nothing wrong with the AIG bonuses and no reason why they should be repaid. But even if you think it was wrong for AIG to pay them, Pelosi’s proposed confiscatory tax–total taxes would exceed 100 percent in some jurisdictions–is an outrage. If Congress can appease a howling mob of demagogues by enacting discriminatory tax legislation against a group of people who are, for the moment, politically unpopular, even though the vast majority of them have nothing to do with the supposed problems that have given rise to popular outcry–imagine, say, Congress enacting a surtax on the incomes of all homosexuals in response to a notorious case of homosexual molestation–then the idea that the Constitution affords us any sort of protection against arbitrary government power is an illusion.
Could not have said it any better myself.
H/T Blue Crab Boulevard who raises an excellent point worth noting, and hopefully, heeding
It is lousy law and Congress needs to pull back from this assault on the Constitution. I cannot imagine this thing passing muster at the Supreme Court.There are plenty of people to get mad at in the AIG fiasco. But the voters should direct their anger at the folks who specifically allowed the AIG bonuses in the first place.
That would be the Democrats in Congress (along with three Republicans) and Barack Obama.
Don’t let them trample the constitution to divert attention from their actions.
Posted on March 21, 2009, in Our precious Liberty, Politics, Taxes. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a Comment.
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