The Ol’ Curmudgeon and I were talking. Actually, he was ranting and I was listening. The topic was politics – of course!
“Where,” he asked rhetorically, “is the outrage over Congress abrogating the Constitution?” The thing is, the First Article of the Constitution has just been trashed!
I’m a little wobbly on the various Articles and what they imply, so I started looking things up. U.S. Constitution Online has good information that is fairly understandable.
The First Article (not to be confused with the First Amendment) deals with a number of things. One of those things (Section 9) is that Congress cannot pass an “ex post facto” law – a law that is retroactive.
So the law going through Congress to retroactively tax the bonuses of people at AIG and other corporations receiving TARP bailout funding is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL! I’m outraged!! I just hope that someone “gets it” and files suit in the Federal Courts against it.
Do I think those bonuses (which are actually part of the salary structure) are obscene? Yes.
Do I think it is the job of the Federal Government to determine the salaries of executives? No.
The thing about this is that it opens the door to retroactive taxation for all of us! How about re-taxing your income from 2007 at a higher rate? How about re-taxing your income from 2003 at a higher rate? That is exactly what this current action is opening the door for!
So WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?!?!?!
I read this blog entry several days ago and filed it back in my mind. The thing is people alive today (including my generation) don’t know what’s in the Constitution. The last time the Constitution was even presented to me in school was when I was in the seventh grade I think it was; and that was in 1960. Even then we didn’t actually read the whole Contitution; we memorized the Preamble and the Bill of Rights, neither of which I can call completely to mind today. Since that time, and increasingly so, the Constitution is not taught or even mentioned in public schools, at least not that I’ve heard of. Neither is the class “Civics” in which we learned about the basic structure of our government and the duration of the terms of the various political offices. So, how can there be outrage when literally no one knows there is something to be outraged about? Thank goodness you posted this. Maybe enough people will read it and talk about it and maybe this knowledge will be spread. I surely hope so. The government of the U.S. has increasingly ignored the Constitution over the past several years, and they either have to be called to account, or we as a nation will just have to roll over and take whatever consequences come because of our ignorance, even if that ignorance has been nurtured and planned by the paranoid “Them.”
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It is soo important! Let me give a few websites where people can educate themselves about what is REALLY in the Constitution. A new post will be up shortly with those links in it.
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The post with links and resources about the Constitution (and Declaration of Independence) is HERE!
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