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Does Congress have the authority to implement a new tax on money that has already been paid?

I don’t believe it will get past the Senate, and if it does, the law will be declared un-constitutional. Of course, as another poster stated the constitution means less and less. But I think where money is involved the constitution still has some strength, after all taxing these bonuses isn’t the same as torturing terrorists, or torturing people who you payed other people to say were terrorists. We shall see.

In short, no problem, it’s been done many times before.

I see that as justice! I guess, I, also, see it as a lesson in “what goes around comes around”. If she would have not tried to screw her ex over, her indiscretions would never have been discovered. But when you find yourself up to your ass in alligators, remember, all you set out to do was drain the swamp!

She screwed herself!

Really? Good points? It was one long personal attack that attempted to make Stewart look like he was “crazy”. Have you jumped the shark?

Just curious you really think that without Cramer we’d not be in the current financial mess we are in? That was what Stewart was implying.

And the idea of sitting on the biggest new story of the last 50 years to….what exactly?

Sure maybe Carlson has a grudge to settle, but c’mon those two things sound laughably stupid.

If these two claims stand up despite Carlson’s personal animosity towards Stewart, then Radley is right, he does have a point or two that make sense.

I have no idea what that means. Are you suggesting I’m pulling ridiculous, shameless stunts in a desperate attempt to boost my sagging readership? Because that’s what “jumping the shark” would mean in this context.

I don’t see any ridiculous stunts. I’m not desperate. And my readership is going up, not down.

I seem to have written a couple sentences you disagree with.

Get over it.

Re: Tucker

Really? Good points? It was one long personal attack that attempted to make Stewart look like he was “crazy”. Have you jumped the shark?

And when they come for you and me, no one will stop them.

Queue “Elephants Walking” music because this is a circus. When is the return to 1980 tax rate of 70%?

I’m feelin’ ya, but their right to tax earnings was granted by the people by going along with it for so long.

Now, the difference between past and future earnings is quite simple. You should know and be able to calculate how much your tax obligation is going to be. It is the only way to plan how you will spend whatever portion of your money the government is going to graciously allow you to keep. Increasing a tax on past earnings does not allow for that.

And think about this, the money for the bunuses is less than a 10th of 1% of the bailout money AIG has gotten. This is a trivial issue. The economy has much more serious issues and everyone is focusing on this. Yes, by all means lets get so caught up over a piddly amount of money (when viewed in context) that we lose sight of the larger issues.

Maybe we should stone a few people to death, maybe that will get the economy turned around.

OK, going off topic here, but the House just passed legislation to implement a 90% tax on the bonuses paid to AIG execs. While it still has to pass the Senate next week, it brings up an interesting question.

Does Congress have the authority to implement a new tax on money that has already been paid?

IANAL, but here is my understanding:

Technically, no. This law would basically be a bill of attainder and an ex post facto law which are both prohibited by the U.S. Constitution.

However, the U.S. Constitution means less and less everyday so who the fuck knows. What will be really cool is if this gets by the SCOTUS and then we have punitive taxes…special pain-in-the-ass taxes that the party in power can levy on its critics. Cool, eh?

Hmmm, Cynical must be on vacation or something.

Implicit in this question is the assumption that congress does have the authority to tax future earnings. But what is the moral difference between congress declaring that they, and not you, are the rightful owners of X% of your previous labor, and congress declaring that they, and not you, are the rightful owners of X% of your future labor?