The White House stopped short on Friday of endorsing legislation to severely tax bonuses paid to executives of companies that accepted taxpayer bailout funds.
Administration officials said instead that President Obama would assess the potential effect of the bill that emerged from Congress on efforts to stabilize the financial system.
At the same time, as Wall Street executives anxiously pondered the ramifications of the measure quickly passed by the House this week, some Senate Republicans began to voice opposition to the legislation, saying it was hasty and abusive.
For the record, I have deep legal concerns with the bonus tax. The retroactive application after AIG has made the payments, the clear targeting of AIG executives, the absolute hysteria over the issue, and resistance by Congress and the President to measures that would have prevented the bonus payments make this law highly suspicious from a legal standpoint.
After I wrote this blog entry, the Wall Street Journal published a similar report.
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