Capital Commerce

Is AIG Bonus Witch Hunt Unconstitutional?

By James Pethokoukis

Posted: March 17, 2009

Now Chuck Schumer is on the AIG bonus case, promising to tax money away from the AIG employees. Wouldn't such legislation be a bill of attainder? Mark Finkelstein wonders, too.

AIG BONUS TAX IS EX POST FACTO

Question: Is this an attempt to sweep this ugly mess under the congressional carpert as it were? Will this be challenged in the courts as being unconstitutional and just how far reaching will this new tax law go and will it come back to haunt our law makers like it has for Senator Christopher Dodd?

The Bonus Money paid out by AIG is so outrageous and will this new Tax & Grab Law go after all other extravagant bonus packages paid by the AIG's of this corporate world?

Oh, the tangled tax web that our law makers weave....no wonder no one undestands the implications of the laws that they dream up.

W.G. Shields of CO @ Mar 19, 2009 16:07:09 PM

Bankruptcy for Bankrupt companies

This is why bankruptcy makes sense for Bankrupt companies. The judges in bankruptcy court are EXPERIENCED as opposed to the Mopes in Congress who only think they know everything.

Of course the Judges in Bankruptcy would have seen through this payoff scheme for Goldman Sachs et al.

DJC of FL @ Mar 18, 2009 08:38:20 AM

Unconscionable contracts?

It seems that any employment contracts that promised multi-million dollar bonuses to those who bankrupted the company are unconscionable and, therefor, unenforceable. Unconscionableness normally presumes that the duped party is sort of a simpleton, but that certainly seems applicable to someone here. Whether it's the AIG top execs, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner or American voters somebody was definitely not too bright.

Tom Hanna of MO @ Mar 18, 2009 04:22:55 AM

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Capital Commerce

Capital Commerce

U.S. News business reporter Matthew Bandyk examines the issues, people, and debates that shape the nexus of political and economic life in the nation's capital.

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