Taking Care of Business: House Passes 90% Tax on Bailout Bonuses

The House passed legislation yesterday to tax at 90% bonuses paid out by companies (AIG) receiving federal bailout money. (Details: applies only to employees making more then $250K at companies receiving more than $5B.) Our gal Stephanie Herseth Sandlin voted aye. House GOP leader John Boehner tried to lead a charge against the measure, saying it's just an effort to cover up past mistakes.

O.K., so by similar logic, on 9/12, Democrats should have blocked President Bush from waging war on the Taliban, since that was just an effort to cover up past mistakes in intelligence and foreign policy, right?

Wrong. Whatever the screw-ups that led to AIG being able to dish out bonuses for failure on the taxpayers' dime, we need to fix the problem. Sending the IRS out to recoup those bonuses is a reasonable and perfectly legal (not to mention vaguely familiar-sounding) method of doing that. And Rep. Boehner's complaint is one more sign that the GOP is all about blame and points-scoring rather than taking care of business.