Bruce Bartlett on Taxing AIG Bonuses

Former Reagan budget official Bruce Bartlett slams House GOP members for supporting a 90% tax on AIG bonuses (hat tip Andrew Sullivan).

Ironically, Barack Obama may save the Republicans from their own craven cowardice. He and his advisers have signaled that the administration has serious problems with the confiscatory tax bill--including doubts about its constitutionality. Liberal legal scholar Lawrence Tribe thinks the 90% tax might violate the Constitution's prohibition against bills of attainder--laws that single out specific people for punishment. It's appalling that 85 Republican congressmen never gave any thought to this consideration in their rush to pander to ignorant fools.

I agree with Thomas Friedman's suggestion for handling the AIG bonuses in a recent New York Times column.

President Obama missed a huge teaching opportunity with A.I.G. Those bonuses were an outrage. The public’s anger was justified. But rather than fanning those flames and letting Congress run riot, the president should have said: “I’ll handle this.”

He should have gone on national TV and had the fireside chat with the country that is long overdue. That’s a talk where he lays out exactly how deep the crisis we are in is, exactly how much sacrifice we’re all going to have to make to get out of it, and then calls on those A.I.G. brokers — and everyone else who, in our rush to heal our banking system, may have gotten bonuses they did not deserve — and tells them that their president is asking them to return their bonuses “for the sake of the country.”

--Ballard Burgher