Taxpayer money for bonuses to failed bankers: good.
Senator Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, predicted Congress's efforts to rescind the bonuses through higher taxes would be thrown out in court. He said the legislation violates the Constitutional ban on bills of attainder, which restricts lawmakers' ability to punish individual Americans.
"It's basically targeted on a small group of people," Gregg said. He also said the bill may exceed lawmakers' power to rewrite existing contracts. He said "of course" the government ought to try to rescind the bonuses "but we've got to do it legally."
Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire blasted the House bill, saying "it's a bill of attainder, it's blatantly unconstitutional, it sets a precedent just if it even gets to the Senate of pettiness that's hard to equal."
"It's everybody grab their pitchforks," Gregg added.
"With so many sectors of our economy hurting, I seriously question why auto part suppliers deserve billions of dollars, especially when the automakers still haven't yet made all of the reforms necessary to be sustainable over the long term," said Gregg, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee
Once one sheds taking anything any politician says at face value - an easy thing to do with Judd Gregg in particular, given his recent series of self-revealing fiascos - things become much easier to understand.
