The Constitution Is Effectively Dead.

So sayeth the sages in the U.S. House of Representatives in passing HR 1586, which imposes a whopping

…90% tax to only the portion of a bonus that, in combination with other income, increases an employee’s adjusted gross income to a level above $250,000 ($125,000 for married couples filing individually) in the taxable year when the bonus was received. Therefore, employees with adjusted gross incomes of less than $250,000 (including bonuses) would not be impacted.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought ex-post facto laws were done away by the Constitution in 1798:

An ex post facto law is a law passed after the occurrence of an event or action which retrospectively changes the legal consequences of the event or action.

The fact alone that the authors of TARP and the stimulus bill are the ones who allowed the bonuses in the first place and wrote them in the legislation is in itself outrageous.

If this were done on a straight party-line vote, it would have been heinous enough, yet understandable, because democrats don’t give a whit about and/or are clueless regarding Constitutional principles, anyway.

But the thing about it is, the measure passed by a 328-90 margin, meaning that many REPUBLICANS likewise threw the Constitution under the bus today. The following is a list of 84 Republicans who at the very least, need to get schooled regarding Constitutional Law:

1. Representative Donald Young (AK)
2. Representative Michael Rogers (AL)
3. Representative Robert Aderholt (AL)
4. Representative John Boozman (AR)
5. Representative Walter Herger, Jr (CA)
6. Representative Tom McClintock (CA)
7. Representative Howard McKeon (CA)
8. Representative Edward Royce (CA)
9. Representative Jerry Lewis (CA)
10. Representative Ken Calvert (CA)
11. Representative Mary Bono Mack (CA)
12. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (CA)
13. Representative Brian Bilbray (CA)
14. Representative Michael Castle (DE)
15. Representative Ander Crenshaw (FL)
16. Representative Virginia Brown-White (FL)
17. Representative Clifford Stearns (FL)
18. Representative John Mica (FL)
19. Representative Gus Michael Bilirakus (FL)
20. Representative C.W. Bill Young (FL)
21. Representative Adam Putnam (FL)
22. Representative Vern Buchanan (FL)
23. Representative Tom Rooney (FL)
24. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL)
25. Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL)
26. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart (FL)
27. Representative Thomas Latham (IA)
28. Representative Peter Roskam (IL)
29. Representative Mark Kirk (IL)
30. Representative Judy Biggert (IL)
31. Representative Timothy Johnson (IL)
32. Representative Donald Manzullo (IL)
33. Representative Aaron Schock (IL)
34. Representative John Shimkus (IL)
35. Representative Joe Donnelly, Sr. (IL)
36. Representative Jerry Moran (KS)
37. Representative Edward Whitfield (KY)
38. Representative Steven Guthrie (KY)
39. Representative Goeff Davis (KY)
40. Representative Harold Rogers (KY)
41. Representative Anh Cao (LA)
42. Representative John Fleming (LA)
43. Representative Rodney Alexander (LA)
44. Representative William Cassidy (LA)
45. Representative Peter Hoekstra (MI)
46. Representative Vernon Ehlers (MI)
47. Representative David Camp (MI)
48. Representative Frederick Stephen Upton (MI)
49. Representative Mike Rogers (MI)
50. Representative Candice Miller
51. Representative Roy Blunt (MO)
52. Representative Jo Ann Emerson (MO)
53. Representative Dennis Rehberg (MT)
54. Representative Walter Beaman Jones, Jr (NC)
55. Representative Jeff Fortenberry (NE)
56. Representative Frank LoBiondo (NJ)
57. Representative Christopher Smith (NJ)
58. Representative Leonard Lance (NJ)
59. Representative Rodney Frelingheysen (NJ)
60. Representative Christopher Lee (NY)
61. Representative Jean Schmidt (OH)
62. Representative Michael Turner (OH)
63. Representative Patrick Tiberi (OH)
64. Representative Greg Walden (OR)
65. Representative Charles Dent (PA)
66. Representative Todd Platts (PA)
67. Representative Henry Brown, Jr. (SC)
68. Representative David Roe (TN)
69. Representative John Duncan, Jr. (TN)
70. Representative Zach Wamp (TN)
71. Representative Joe Barton (TX)
72. Representative Michael McCaul (TX)
73. Representative Lamar Smith (TX)
74. Representative Kenny Merchant (TX)
75. Representative Robert Wittman (VA)
76. Representative James Randy Forbes (VA)
77. Representative Robert Goodlatte (VA)
78. Representative Eric Cantor (VA)
79. Representative Frank Wolf (VA)
80. Representative Cathy McMorris-Rogers (WA)
81. Representative David George Reichert (WA)
82. Representative Paul Ryan (WA)
83. Representative Thomas Petrie (WI)
84. Representative Shelly Capito (WV)

This list does not include a number of linguini-spined Republicans who did not vote at all on the measure.

This is what happens when a bunch of people who were elected to uphold and defend the Constitution either 1. Never read it; and/or 2. Don’t give a whit about what’s in it.

Perhaps a mandatory class in Constitutional law before being eligible to run for office would be a good first step.

In the meanwhile, the U.S. Congress has given a message to Americans loud and clear: We no longer have Constitutional protections against ex-post facto laws, nor do we have Constitutional protections against bills of attainder (A bill of attainder (also known as an act or writ of attainder) is an act of legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without benefit of a trial).

In other words, kiss the Constitution goodbye. Other than a document of genius and historical significance, it has today been rendered worthless.

It is my fervent hope that the employees of AIG that will be the recipients of this tragedy will take their cases before the Supreme Court. They, unfortunately, are are our last line of defense.