In September of 1787, the Constitutional Convention was debating the possibility of adding a bill of rights. It wasn't going well. The list of those things that the proposed Federal Congress would be forbidden to do was whittled away to practically nothing. Why bother when most of the delegates agreed that no one would DARE pass laws to abridge the likes of Freedom of Speech, Assembly and the Press? However, a few things were held to be so egregious and dangerous that they were retained in the original constitution.
Among these were: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
Now what kind of laws might these be? Okay, let's take an example: Let's say that a corporation nobody likes, AIG, has given a bunch of people nobody likes, their executives in charge of toxic assets, bonuses that seem to be waaaaaaaaay too much in light that the company was driven into the ground and is in government receivership.
Now let's say the checks were legal and that they were already paid.
Got it? Good.
Now let's say that Congress, in it's righteous anger, decides to get the money back. How do they do it? Well they pass a law taking it from them. Just that. "We don't like you or what you did, so you're going to be punished."
It was legal at the time. Thus any "tax" on income that wasn't in effect at the time the checks were paid out is ex post facto after the fact. The constitution is very clear on this: If it's legal now, then it's legal now. You cannot say if Congress later bans it then it's not legal now. Now is now and the law now is the law now. It sounds redundant, but the AIG "tax" bill passed by the House (and supported by President Obama) is retroactive. It taxes income at a special rate retroactively. Taking property without due process of law.
Another thing the bill does is criminalizing a specific class of people. The aforesaid executives, and punishes them because of who or what they are. They are attained guilty by Congress and are being punished for it. Not because they broke a law but because the law broke them.
Now you may not like these people, and may think that the law is just and AIG is run by a bunch of scumbags. However, the reason why the Conventioneers put this in the constitution was that they didn't trust future legislatures.
Congress can't ban cell phones retroactively and then throw everyone in jail for having one under the constitution. They cannot pass a law saying Guys from Alexandria Virginia are all evil and should pay a million dollar fine each and spend a year in the clink.
Yet, this is exactly what the House of Representatives just did. This is what the president, who took the oath of office just two months ago, endorsed.
If we can do that, then Congress might as well throw Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity in jail for being jerks and get it over with. Then confiscate Rupert Murdoch's business holdings and take away his television. Then they could take away YOUR television and give it to the poor!
Some things you have to just let go. The AIG bonuses were scuzzy as hell, but we have to live with them. Freedom is too precious to throw away even for this.
p i s s-tests that an ordinary citizen has to take to work at home depot, maybe that would help change our ridiculous drug laws if the wealthy and privileged actually had abide by them
Article 1 of the Constitution states that Congress shall pass no ex post facto laws, and clearly, taxing a payout when no such tax existed at the time of that payout is retroactive. As hard as it is to accept, Lurio is right that we must let this go. Protecting the Constitution is more important than putting the scummy executives in their place.
I'd show up with a tape recording of that guy from the Simpsons going 'ha-ha' and play it about 5000 times.
The public gave them free money and didn't want them giving out bonuses. So did they cancel bonuses? No, they changed the name to 'retention payments', hoping we wouldn't notice. The list goes on for their dishonorable deeds.
Here's how I would have handled it: Youre NOT getting the bailout money if you pay the bonuses.
AIG: But... but... if we fail it will doom us all!!!
You figure it out AIG. Don't pay the bonuses, fire employees who demand them, and let them sue. I mean you've put people out of work, out of their homes, taken away their jobs, livelihoods, and healthcare, now you're gonna be squeamish about breaking a contract or two?
Everybody who has actually read the constitution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calder_v._Bull
Professor Tribe of Harvard, on the specific matter of retroactive tax changes:
"The Ex Post Facto Clause applies exclusively to criminal punishment and poses no difficulty here. And the fact that the measure contemplated would operate retroactively as well as prospectively doesn’t distinguish it from any number of tax and other financial measures that the Supreme Court has upheld over the claim that fundamental fairness precludes retroactively undoing contractual obligations."
Exceptions to ex post facto are clearly laid out: civil cases, and criminal cases where punishment is reduced. The "money" quote from the supreme court, c.1798:
"Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed. Every law that alters legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offence, in order to convict the offender. All these, and similar laws, are manifestly unjust and oppressive. In my opinion, the true distinction is between ex post facto laws, and retrospective laws. Every ex post facto law must necessarily be retrospective; but every retrospective law is not an ex post facto law: The former, only, are prohibited."
It's retrospective, not ex post facto.
Conspiracy to take peoples money by deception and trickery is Fraud.
You don't have to break any other laws or regulated to be guilty of Fraud.
But, how are they "after the fact"?
This is persecution of at most 75 people.
- Wikipedia
In addition, the addition to the wiki that you cited was added TODAY. For all anybody knows, it could have been you that added it.
Wiki beats Britannica on accuracy according to a peer review paper in Nature.
The collective mind beats the meritocracy.
Here, I'll do this one for you:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/92-1941.ZS.html
Wiki is correct.
But now, let's look at how Geithner and people like him are defending the bonuses -- NOT on Constitutional grounds, but on the grounds that we need Wall Street to remain "in partnership" with the government, in order to untangle the credit crisis.
Well, heck, that's a license for Wall Street to ask for anything. And, since there are still ongoing negotiations between government and Wall Street, they WILL demand something sneaky and unconscionable once again.
If the maximum outrage is not expressed NOW, how will we avoid the next round of, "Whoops, the cows got out again. Close the barn door!"
"It" does not call out for that at all. You may call out, or the street mob may, but "it" does not.
It does not matter what Geithner does or says. You are deflecting from the fact that there are plenty of people who want to see someone hang by saying that there are some who do not. What does that prove? Only that not everybody has lost their minds.
"Well, heck, that's a license for Wall Street to ask for anything."
Only for those things which are lawful. Not everything is lawful.
"And, since there are still ongoing negotiations..."
Now you are projecting a future that you know nothing about. Are we supposed to be impressed by the clarity of your tea leaves?
"If the maximum outrage is not expressed NOW, how will we avoid the next round of, "Whoops, the cows got out again. Close the barn door!""
Expressing rage is not nearly as important as applying the law all the time, independently of what the public thinks. If you do otherwise, you have anarchy. Which, if you look at the French Revolution, leads from "Down with the heads of the bourgeois!" to "Down with the head of my neighbor because he has one cow and ten more chickens than I do."
Oh come now. Don't you know the old joke? A lawyer is brought into a room and asked by a potential client, "how much is two plus two?" The lawyer looks around furtively -- shuts the door and the drapes -- leans conspiratorially over the client's desk, and whispers, "How much do you WANT it to be?"
We wish it were not so -- but 50% of the law is negotiation.
"Expressing rage is not nearly as important as applying the law all the time, independently of what the public thinks. If you do otherwise, you have anarchy."
Don't misunderstand me, I understand we're stuck here. What is morally just is legally impossible -- and I came down on the side of the law.
Now, how shall we write FUTURE versions of laws like TARP? You think I'm reading tea leaves? The Federal Reserve just announced a $1 trillion move this week. Meanwhile, Geithner is making commitments to write what amount to credit default swaps to get toxic assets traded and moving again. Has the public's displeasure have any impact on these measures? I'm not holding my breath.
Meanwhile: your French Revolution argument is a classic slippery-slope fallacy.
What the Senate will not water down, though, is the lose-lose for Obama. He can either lose the PR campaign or break his promise to uphold the constitution. I wish the Democrats in Congress would have been this creative to cut down Bush at the knee as they are in cutting down Obama.
Loser politics. The Republicans seem to have it right... the Democrats know exactly how to turn victory into horse manure.