YOU'D THINK A CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR...:

Obama Open to Special Bonus Tax (Shailagh Murray, Paul Kane and Michael D. Shear, 3/18/09, The Washington Post)

As Geithner and other Obama aides continued to scramble to pull back the bonuses and calm the public furor they sparked, Congress was preparing its own remedies. In what they acknowledged would be an extraordinary move, leading Democrats proposed using the tax code to punish executives at the firm, in which the federal government controls an 80 percent stake, unless those payouts are surrendered voluntarily. [...]

On Monday, Obama expressed his unhappiness with the bonuses and directed government lawyers to review the company's contracts to determine whether provisions guaranteeing the payments could be overturned. Last week, the administration persuaded the company to restructure some of the payments, and AIG's top seven executives had earlier agreed to forgo their bonuses through this year.

Yesterday, Gibbs said Obama was open to the idea of a special tax on the bonuses, along with other options that lawmakers were floating, including legal action against AIG. “Obviously, the president is committed to working as quickly as possible with Congress to find ways to recoup this money.”

...and President of the Harvard Law Review might have some passing acquantaince with the concept of a bill of attainder.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 18, 2009 3:58 PM