A NY congress person wants to establish legislation to tax financial bonuses at 100%

[stray cat]

Mentioned on Countdown - that works for me. I actually am in favor a special bonus - free room and board at Riker's Prison!

[Thothmes]

1. A NY congress person that does not realize

what ex post facto means.

[Igel]

6. Must be a newbie.

New York rakes in the dough from taxing bonuses. When there's a downturn on Wall Street, Albany's bean counters shudder.

100% tax rate --> 0 bonuses --> 0 taxes from bonuses. Then again, I'm sure they'd find something else to tax.

[Thothmes]

8. I read the OP

as the NY rep trying to get U.S.Congress to tax 100% of bonuses. That is ok for the next tax year (even though 100% tax is stupid for the reasons you state)but if it is an attempt to get the bonuses just paid, it is ex post facto. Therefore a exercise in unconstitutional law as far as I can see.

[MercutioATC]

2. What about people who actually DO their jobs well?

If somebody in a financial division does good work, why should there be a law that takes away any bonus they might get?

Knee-jerk moronic legislation, and a waste of time.

[stray cat]

3. I can't name many that are getting bonuses who qualify and got bail out money - can you?

[MercutioATC]

4. I can't name individual names...but why not just put a cap on bonuses...say $25k or so?

That would protect the low to mid-level workers' bonuses while eliminating the big big bonuses for the people at the top.

...and there's no need to legislate it, just make it a condition of accepting TARP money.

[Igel]

7. Because they'll find some other way of doing it,

a way we'll almost certainly find even more reprehensible.

A lot of executive compensation practices we dislike so much now are the result of pressuring them to abandon the executive practices we didn't like less in the '90s, and they resulted from the abandonment of executive pay practices we didn't like even less in the '80s.

Problem is, when it was straightforward it was easier for boards to say 'no', executive pay was a lot lower and the means less reprehensible. Post-hoc reasoning? To some extent, but I'm not saying that my speculation's a valid inference, I'm just speculating that there might be an underlying causal connection.

[Bluzmann57]

5. We get a small bonus every year

because I work for a company that 1- has not, nor will they ever ask for a government handout, and 2- rewards employees for a job well done. Why should I give up my meager bonus because AIG execs are assholes? No, this is a knee jerk reaction and likely has no chance of passage.