As reported this afternoon, Congress has hurriedly passed a 90% tax rate that only applies to the recipients of bailout-funded bonuses.  Lawmakers allege that the tax will only apply to those who earned Freddie/Fannie and AIG bonuses.

The scandal-prone Rep. Charles Rangel of New York smugly remarked, "We figured that the local and state governments would take care of the other 10%.

According to the New York Post, AIG isn't the only organization in Congress's sights.

"Four big New York employers each, it needs to be noted, a major local tax-revenue generator seem to be squarely in Pelosi and Rangel's sights: Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley."

Many of these banks entered the federal bailout program only after intense political pressure combined with assurances that confiscatory taxation would be off the table.

All of this has led various uninformed commentators to wonder if a 90% tax rate imposed ex post facto is entirely Constitutional.  However, a 90% tax rate for selected entities is quite Constitutional, even though the tax is the result of blatant Congressional lying to the banks that naively relied on Democrats to save them from the results of liberal policies.

These people pounding on the Constitution are focused on the wrong issue.  The right issue is: if Congress can gleefully pass a 90% tax rate upon the very recipients that it purported to save mere weeks ago, who else is next?  Everyone--except, allegedly, Treasury Secretary Geithner--knew that the AIG executives were slated for bonuses.  Some of the bonuses were contractually required, and others were required merely to retain the remaining AIG employees necessary to keep the company solvant.

Helpfully, Obama issued a statement of non-responsible responsibility.  Basically, he said that no one in his administration was responsible for policing the bailout funds, but he nonetheless somehow "took responsibility."  Right.  The bailout contained an alleged "loophole" allowing bailed-out companies to use government funds to pay contractually required bonuses and attempt to retain their fleeing workforce.  That "loophole" was there when Obama informed the public and Congress that the bailout was "necessary" to avoid "disasterous" consequences to the U.S. economy.

This is a loophole that Congress created to "save" businesses that were too big to fail.  Now, they are using this opportunity to destroy the very businesses hoping to take advantage of the bailout that they themselves created.

So, who else is liable to be hit with a 90% tax rate?  If a 90% tax rate is completely reasonable to Congress as a populist response to an unpopular business group, what other businesses and individuals will be sufficiently unpopular to provoke this kind of response in the future?  We already know that people making over $250,000 are not exactly favored by the Obama administration.  Yet, we also know that even a 100% tax on those individuals will not dig us out of our debt.  Perhaps next, Congress will come after people who make $100,000 a year, or $75,000, or whatever amount they decide will give them the money to continue feeding bread to the mob.

With this 90% tax, Congress has proved that what we have really isn't ours.  Everything we think we "earn" is just on loan from the government.