Your Bonus? I'll Take That (Back).

From Raw Story today, David Edwards and Rachel Oswald bring us news that Ron Paul has called HR 1598, the bill that proposes a 90% tax on the AIG bonuses "an 'outrage' and unconstitutional."

I understand his point, which is that this is all posturing on the part of the Congress--sort of polishing the brass on the Titanic. No doubt what the Congress is doing is the politically safe move, and in the sort of hyper-campaigning climate that we see, I don't begrudge them the safe move.

While I don't agree with Paul's reasons, I do agree with his overall claim that this is a bad idea. To my mind, it sets a dangerous precedent for the government to create a tax to recoup money that--unwisely or not--it gave away.

I don't want those jerks to keep their money, either, but I feel even less comfortable with a government that can take what it wants in some backdoor manner like inventing new taxes. I say let the execs have their money, but since we own a goodly portion of AIG, we should just can them and make sure they never work for us again.