Monday, November 10, 2008

Obsiadin Wings makes a good point

There's a story going around about how Treasury essentially repealed, perhaps illegally, a part of the tax code resulting in a $140 billion tax windfall for banks.

Like the Obsidian Wings poster, I don't have the legal understanding to know if this was legal, nor the economic background to know if it was a good idea. But it sure doesn't smell right, so Treasury had better explain why this was a good idea. As Obsidian Wings noted:

Third, giving banks a huge unilateral tax break is the sort of thing that might as well have been designed to deprive the bailout of whatever popular support it might ever have had. We live in a democracy. People's opinions matter. The Treasury should remember that, and act accordingly.

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