Still glad you voted for him?

[Bob78164]

They backed off:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03394.html

And that's why I'm glad I voted for him. I don't mind a President who thinks about implementing ideas that turn out to be bad ones, as long as he proves himself capable of hearing and understanding the feedback. --Bob

Leadership: float an idea, and if enough people like whatever it is, you put it into place, and if people do not like it, you drop it and pretend it never happened; in short, only do things that everyone agrees with.

That's not what I said, and I don't think it's what happened. I don't think he dropped the idea because it was unpopular -- I think he dropped it because the feedback convinced him it was bad policy. If Obama only did things people like, he would have opposed the bailouts. --Bob

[Bob78164]

They backed off:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03394.html

And that's why I'm glad I voted for him. I don't mind a President who thinks about implementing ideas that turn out to be bad ones, as long as he proves himself capable of hearing and understanding the feedback. --Bob

Like when he thought about allowing AIG to pay out all those bonuses and when he was "capapble of hearing and understanding the feedback," he changed his mind.

Except, doggonneit, they actually authorized those darned bonuses in the stimulus bill.

It looks like your facts are incomplete. Apparently, the bonuses were authorized on November 25, 2008. An Act of Congress attempting to rescind them would almost certainly have violated (among other provisions) the Contracts Clause. So simply forbidding them wouldn't have worked. Taxing them at confiscatory rates, on the other hand . . . . --Bob

[Flybrick]

Taxing them at confiscatory rates, on the other hand . . . . --Bob

is blatantly unconstitutional.

Ex post facto is the term I believe you legal folks use.

Nope, Congress, both sides have risen to Profiles in Hypocrisy in this matter.

Treasury Secretary Geithner has looked timid at best, buffoonish at worst. Even President Obama hasn't covered himself with kudos on this one, playing to the populist rage crowd.

I do give the President credit for saying, "Ok, he's my guy, therefore this is my fault. Let's move on."

A fallout that I hope happens is Dodd is defeated in 2010.

[Jeemie]

Taxing them at confiscatory rates, on the other hand . . . . --Bob

is blatantly unconstitutional.

Ex post facto is the term I believe you legal folks use.

Nope, Congress, both sides have risen to Profiles in Hypocrisy in this matter.

Treasury Secretary Geithner has looked timid at best, buffoonish at worst. Even President Obama hasn't covered himself with kudos on this one, playing to the populist rage crowd.

I do give the President credit for saying, "Ok, he's my guy, therefore this is my fault. Let's move on."

A fallout that I hope happens is Dodd is defeated in 2010.

Exactly.

I'm wondering how Bob #'s will spin it when Obama passes this blatantly unconsitutional legislation into law.

I also agree that our government- both parties- is rapidly spinning out of control.

[Appa23]

Taxing them at confiscatory rates, on the other hand . . . . --Bob

is blatantly unconstitutional.

Ex post facto is the term I believe you legal folks use.

Nope, Congress, both sides have risen to Profiles in Hypocrisy in this matter.

Treasury Secretary Geithner has looked timid at best, buffoonish at worst. Even President Obama hasn't covered himself with kudos on this one, playing to the populist rage crowd.

I do give the President credit for saying, "Ok, he's my guy, therefore this is my fault. Let's move on."

A fallout that I hope happens is Dodd is defeated in 2010.

Exactly.

I'm wondering how Bob #'s will spin it when Obama passes this blatantly unconsitutional legislation into law.

I also agree that our government- both parties- is rapidly spinning out of control.

Let him have his morning cup of Kool-Aid, and he will make something up to support the outrageous tax scheme.

[tlynn78]

I don't think he dropped the idea because it was unpopular -- I think he dropped it because the feedback convinced him it was bad policy.

Riiight. Big difference, there.


t.

[Bob78164]

Taxing them at confiscatory rates, on the other hand . . . . --Bob

is blatantly unconstitutional.

Ex post facto is the term I believe you legal folks use.

That's simply wrong. An ex post facto law is a law that criminalizes behavior that was legal when it occurred. Tax statutes don't do that -- they simply tax.

There is lots of law on this issue, and it's one-sided, and not the way you want it to be. Congress avoided the only potential hurdle (there are restrictions on retroactive legislation, but not as many as you might think) when it limited the tax to income received in 2009 or later. --Bob

[Flybrick]

That's simply wrong. An ex post facto law is a law that criminalizes behavior that was legal when it occurred. Tax statutes don't do that -- they simply tax.

--Bob

Ok, so a law is a law but a statute is a statute and not a law?

So if the AIG tax statute is ignored by the bonus receivers, they are in violation of a statute and not a law?

So, no worries about not paying it back. It's only a tax statute and therefore not subject to criminal penalties.

I've gotta try that under my tax statutes that I have to follow...

Oh, wait, already accomplished by the Treasury Secretary himself. No penalties or interests in missing some of the tax statutes. Maybe because those statues existed before he didn't pay under them?

[TheCalvinator24]

Although I believe we disagree on the policy-side, I have to agree with Bob#### on the legal side of this issue.

A new tax is not, by definition, ex post facto. The potential criminal behavior--tax evasion--is already criminal behavior.

[Flybrick]

Serious question:

A tax statute can be passed after the date something was earned (or not earned, but just go with the question please) and be made retroactive?

If, and it's a completely hypothetical question to make sure I understand, that is so, could it legally be done to pass a tax statute dated today, 20 Mar 09, stating that all income earned in 1970 will be taxed now at 100% and those that earned that income must pay by 1 April 09?

If so, it seems that the tax statute in question towards the AIG bonuses is in that category.

Further, is it a bill of attainder to go after such a targeted group?

[BackInTex]

Serious question:

A tax statute can be passed after the date something was earned (or not earned, but just go with the question please) and be made retroactive?

If, and it's a completely hypothetical question to make sure I understand, that is so, could it legally be done to pass a tax statute dated today, 20 Mar 09, stating that all income earned in 1970 will be taxed now at 100% and those that earned that income must pay by 1 April 09?

If so, it seems that the tax statute in question towards the AIG bonuses is in that category.

Further, is it a bill of attainder to go after such a targeted group?

They can't target specific individuals or groups. They can tax separately bonuses paid with the tarp funds, but can't specify AIG. So what happens now, are all the health banks that were forced to accept the funds will have their bonues taxed the same as the AIG scoflaws.

This is the shoot from the hip crap that got us into trouble in the first place. When you have no base set of values (i.e. whatever the polls show) this is what you get. When you start with your base set of values, you can be consistent. In other words the funds would not have been given, or there would have been a tight set of strings.

[BackInTex]

So what if Obama backed off. He still thought it was a good idea. Which give insight into how he thinks.

Hitler thought exterminating the Jews was a good thing. Had his countrymen squashed the idea at the beginning would not make him a better man than he was because his bad idea wasn't accepted.


Time to kill the thread. I got the answers I wanted. And unfortunatley, as expected.

[TheCalvinator24]

Serious question:

A tax statute can be passed after the date something was earned (or not earned, but just go with the question please) and be made retroactive?

If, and it's a completely hypothetical question to make sure I understand, that is so, could it legally be done to pass a tax statute dated today, 20 Mar 09, stating that all income earned in 1970 will be taxed now at 100% and those that earned that income must pay by 1 April 09?

If so, it seems that the tax statute in question towards the AIG bonuses is in that category.

Further, is it a bill of attainder to go after such a targeted group?

No, it can't go back like that, but not because of the ex post facto clause. Tax laws aren't based on days, but on years. Changes can be made in the tax code at any point in 2009 to affect income received in 2009. As Bob#### pointed out, the confiscatory taxes that are being proposed would only apply to income received in 2009, not any prior year.

[Flybrick]

Cal,

Ok, thanks. Bear with me a little more:

The bonuses were paid under contracts made with the employees written and signed before all this 'new tax' stuff.

As such, the contracts were negotiated under the then existing conditions. Could not the argument be made that they would have structured their contracts differently if they had known the rules?

Further, the government gave the funds even though it was in possession of the facts of the bonuses.

The fact that the light didn't come on is not the employees' fault.

Could this stand a Constitutional review?

I am not defending the employees, the bonuses, or anything. I just think the hypocrisy of Congress stinks more.

Congress bought the problem, now it's crying 'no fair.'

[Bob78164]

Cal,

Ok, thanks. Bear with me a little more:

The bonuses were paid under contracts made with the employees written and signed before all this 'new tax' stuff.

As such, the contracts were negotiated under the then existing conditions. Could not the argument be made that they would have structured their contracts differently if they had known the rules?

Further, the government gave the funds even though it was in possession of the facts of the bonuses.

The fact that the light didn't come on is not the employees' fault.

Could this stand a Constitutional review?

I am not defending the employees, the bonuses, or anything. I just think the hypocrisy of Congress stinks more.

Congress bought the problem, now it's crying 'no fair.'

Almost all taxpayers are taxed on a cash basis. That means that the issue is when the money was received, not when it was earned. Almost every tax change Congress has ever made, or ever could make, would be subject to the argument that if people had only known what future tax law would say, they could or would have structured their transactions differently.

There was much sturm und drang about this issue (if memory serves) when the 1986 tax reforms placed limitations on the ability to currently claim passive losses. Those limitations had a huge impact on transactions that had formerly been attractive primarily because of their tax effect. --Bob

[Bob78164]

So what if Obama backed off. He still thought it was a good idea. Which give insight into how he thinks.

He thought it might be a good idea. He got additional information, he thought about it, and he changed his mind. I'm fine with that.

I understand it's possible to cynically believe that the additional information he got was the political information that the proposal was unpopular. I believe that he simply overlooked the potential effect of the proposal on health insurance rates to be paid by veterans. --Bob

[wintergreen48]

So what if Obama backed off. He still thought it was a good idea. Which give insight into how he thinks.

He thought it might be a good idea. He got additional information, he thought about it, and he changed his mind. I'm fine with that.

I understand it's possible to cynically believe that the additional information he got was the political information that the proposal was unpopular. I believe that he simply overlooked the potential effect of the proposal on health insurance rates to be paid by veterans. --Bob

I am always amazed at how the faith of true believers can never be shaken.

Vyacheslav Molotov was, among other things, Foreign Minister and Premier of the Soviet Union under Stalin. He remained an unrepentant Stalinist until the day he died-- nothwithstanding that his own wife-- whom he loved-- was arrested and imprisoned by Stalin, and was only released because of the 'thaw' after Stalin's death, and notwithstanding that Molotov himself was about to be arrested when Stalin died. Molotov signed off on a huge number of the murder orders during the purges (like the Nazis, the Soviets were very legalistic about these things-- you generally couldn't kill someone without first giving her/him a 'trial,' and even then a high official had to sign off on the order to kill the person), and he justified this, in part, based upon the fact that all of the criminals confessed to their crimes. The fact that some of the written confessions were smeared with blood didn't matter-- obviously, if the defendant wasn't a criminal, he wouldn't have been tortured, and since he was tortured, he must have been guilty. A few of the people in the Soviet hierarchy-- those of little faith-- were actually a little concerned about the quality/veracity of the confessions: in one famous instance, the criminal confessed to having engaged in conspiratorial activity in a particular building on a particular date... when the building had not yet been built (Stalin's response to this was to tell the NKVD to be less specific about addresses in the confessions-- ''just say it was in the railway station-- every town has a railway station'); in another instance, the criminal confessed to various treasonous activities that, if they had actually occured, would have occurred when he was already in prison. Molotov acknowledged that these particular items were impossible and that the criminals did not actually commit THOSE crimes; but he claimed that this PROVED that the criminals were, in fact, criminals-- he said that they were deliberately making false confessions in order to make it seem that the rest of their confessions were false, that is, they were deliberately trying to place doubt upon the TRUE things that they actually DID confess to.

You cannot shake a true believer.

[silverscreenselect]

Vyacheslav Molotov was, among other things, Foreign Minister and Premier of the Soviet Union under Stalin. He remained an unrepentant Stalinist until the day he died--
You cannot shake a true believer.

He may have been a true believer, but he sure made a mean cocktail....

Shaken, not stirred.

[minimetoo26]

I'm not sure I understand all this:

Is the proposal to take the burden of insurance away from the government and put it on business? Like, the opposite of Socialism?

I'm not being facetious, just clueless.



(Shut up, beast! )

[Flybrick]

mini,

The proposal was to make business (private insurance) assume the risk/financial penalty for any injuries sustained while on military service - combat included.

As those insuree's wouldn't have been in combat except at the direction of the government, to make private insurers pay those costs is simply dishonest.

I'm all about having private insurance.

Private insurance companies, however, usually have an "act of war" clause in their policies.

If they don't, they will PDQ.

Addititionally, the private companies would then refuse to take anyone who could do military duty - reservists/Guardsmen included.

Neat way to cut the military as who would serve if you had to pay for your wounds suffered as a result of government decisions?

[Bob78164]

I'm not sure I understand all this:

Is the proposal to take the burden of insurance away from the government and put it on business? Like, the opposite of Socialism?

I'm not being facetious, just clueless.



(Shut up, beast! )

The proposal was to back-bill health insurance companies for combat-related injuries and conditions to veterans. (They are already back billed for non-combat related injuries and conditions.) I think it was a bad idea, and I'm glad the Administration dropped it with dispatch. --Bob

[minimetoo26]

Gotcha.

I know how hard it is to get insurers to pay ANYthing, believe me.

[Bob78164]

Although I believe we disagree on the policy-side, I have to agree with Bob#### on the legal side of this issue.

I'm actually not sure what I think about the policy side of the issue. My original point was to respond to S-cubed reflexively blaming Obama for, well, pretty much everything, and in particular, for the government's approval of the AIG bonuses. I pointed out that the approval occurred under the Bush Administration and ham-handedly attempting to simply invalidate the bonuses by fiat, as S-cubed appeared to be think the Obama Administration should have done, simply wouldn't have worked.

I then moved on to the tax proposal, which will accomplish that goal if it's enacted, and from there we got sidetracked by the false beliefs about the scope of the ex post facto clause.

I've gotten busy at the office so I haven't had time to think this through, but I'm finding a lot of merit in Nate Silver's view of the issue over at fivethirtyeight.com. --Bob

[Flybrick]

It's a bad precedent and bad policy.

I'm not skillful enough to argue the legal merits (give me time to study for the LSAT, get accepted, attend law school, pass the bar, etc, etc) and I'll get back to you for one of those.

Bottom line: The Obama Administration, in the form of the Treasury Department and Geithner 'bought' the problem when it went for the funds under TARP. They knew the bonuses were in the existing AIG contracts and details.

Helped out tremendously by Sen Dodd, who didn't, I mean did, insert the bonus money provisions in the legislation but only under the 'pressure from the Treasury,' and knowing of the issue, including the legal ramifications of not paying the bonuses so it punted hoping the story wouldn't come out.

Now Congress is playing "I'm more outraged" while Obama 'studies' the issue from the sidelines - first expressing outrage, then letting Congress pass the retroactive tax punishment.

This is a misuse of the government that has meaning for all of us.

I'll still take the baby steps of hoping to see Dodd defeated come 2010. If the Congress changes back to a center or center-right due to other liberal defeats, so much the better.

But I'll be content with Dodd.

[Bob78164]

I am always amazed at how the faith of true believers can never be shaken.

Although not quite stated in so many words, I'm gonna assume this is directed at me. It doesn't address my reasoning at all. It's namecalling (although eloquently and entertainingly written) that cheapens and inhibits debate. It's beneath you, and I'd like you to do better.

I'm fairly sure I've got enough of a track record here (and elsewhere) to demonstrate that I am not a reflexive cheerleader. (Hell, I've even been known to vote for the occasional Republican for statewide office.) And I've never been shy about stating, not merely my position, but also the basis for that position, so that it can be critically analyzed by those inclined to do so.

So show me that I'm wrong. Prove (or at least provide evidence) that Obama really did abandon the proposal, not because he was persuaded on the merits that it was a bad idea, but solely because he didn't want to pay the political price to push the proposals. Show me that he had considered before the storm broke the likely effect the proposal would have had on the price veterans would pay for private insurance. Or show me why it's a bad idea for an Administration to float trial balloons at a time when it is still willing to alter policy. --Bob