Letters To Jim Webb And Mark Warner Concerning Retroactive Taxing Of Bonuses

Here are copies of the letters I emailed to Senators Webb and Warner concerning the retroactive taxes Congress wants to impose on the bonuses to be paid to employees of AIG.

Feel free to copy and paste this message and send it to your own Senators:

[Senator], I am writing you to ask you to vote "Nay" on the upcoming bill that would impose retroactive taxes on bonuses paid out to AIG employees. Whether those bonuses are right or wrong, good or bad, is immaterial to my concern here. I am concerned about the integrity of the Constitution of the United States of America. Specifically, Article I, Section 9, Clause 3 which clearly and unambiguously states: "No Bill of Attander or Ex Post Facto law shall be passed." HR1586 which passed the House yesterday falls, by definition, under that clause in two ways. First, a Bill of Attainder, in the context of the Constitution, means a bill that has a negative effect on a single person or group. A punitive tax that specifically targets a certain group (e.g. those who were to receive these bonuses) certainly falls under the definition here. That makes this tax unconstitutional. Second, when Congress passed the stimulus package and Barack Obama put the Presidential signature on that bill, it became the law of the land. Part of that law is an amendment put in by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) that specifically exempted these bonuses from any regulation. Now, Congress is seeking to implement a law that puts such regulation in place and they want to enforce this law retroactively. That is known as an Ex Post Facto law. This too makes this legislation unconstitutional. Either way you look at it, this 90% tax Congress wants to retroactively impose on bonus payments that had previously been made perfectly legal by Congress and the President, is wholly, completely and absolutely unconstitutional. Anyone who would willingly violate a single provision of the Constitution would most certainly be willing to violate any other provision. Please do not be such a person. Please vote "Nay" on the Senate version of HR1586 and preserve the integrity of the Constitution. Thank you.

As I wrote earlier, if this becomes law and is not struck down by the Supreme Court, the Republic will be in grave danger.