If Congress was serious about not paying bonuses to AIG, they should have stopped giving them money months ago. Instead, we now learn that a few hundred million is being paid out of the $150B they received. In the grand scheme of things, this is a very small percentage. Kind of like the small percentage that a few billion in earmarks that CONgress just authorized in the form of earmarks in several hundred billion in omnibus spending. After all that was their argument for the earmarks.
Now for the scary part. If CONgress can target individual people with specific taxes that aim to take 100% of what they earn/make, we should all be afraid. This means that CONgress is no longer the voice of the people, but instead a group of power hungry bureaucrats that will do anything to anyone to stay in power. Now I do not like the idea of giving AIG executives a penny, they obviously did not earn it. However, if the company did not have the money they could not pay it. CONgress created that animal with money and a specific set of rules. This is just another example of how CONgress cannot respond effectively to market activities.
Once these members of CONgress realize they now have the power to target individuals, the AIG confiscation will just be the beginning. Wait until they target people that have different social views, religious views, or any of host of reasons (think gun ownership, etc).
Americans are losing more and more liberty every day. We should all be afraid.
