People protest against corporate bailouts in front of AIG's Los Angeles office.(PHOTO CREDIT: GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
There seems to be plenty of opposition to the House of Representatives' bonus tax plan - including perhaps President Obama himself.
In a move that many saw as "grandstanding," the House rushed through that 90 percent tax on bonuses of big earners at bailed-out financial institutions last week. The measure came in response to news that AIG paid out at least $165 million in bonuses - after getting $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money.
But in an interview with "60 Minutes," the president questioned the legality and constitutionality of the tax; and said that he wouldn't "govern out of anger." Nonetheless, Mr. Obama vowed to make Wall Street understand it must do away with "the old way of doing business."
He said the Senate would produce a very different and more acceptable version of the the bonus tax bill; maybe one he could sign.
Also coming out against the tax were other top administration officials - the vice president's top economic adviser, Jared Bernstein, said it "may be a dangerous way to go." And the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer, said the president favors creating a federal "resolution authority" over bailed-out financial institutions which would allow a judge to void the kind of contracts that let AIG pay out the bonuses.
Meanwhile the American public clearly wants that money back. A new Gallup poll shows 76 percent of those surveyed want the government to intervene to block or recover the AIG bonuses.
Here's my question to you: Is it a good idea to tax bonuses?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
Here is an excerpt from Jack’s new book, "Now or Never"
I never presumed to have any more answers about being a parent than anybody else.
There are no perfect parents, perfect kids, perfect families - only degrees of dysfunction.
You get up in the morning and do the best you can. At the end of the day you say, "Okay, that wasn't so bad, let's try it again tomorrow." Some of my instincts were pretty good and some of them were awful.
I did stay engaged and didn't say to hell with being a father when my first marriage ended. With the younger girls, I eventually made the choice to clean up my alcoholism before I pushed things to the point of no return. But most of the credit does to my second wife Carol; to the girls; and to God Almighty. Ultimately, I've just been very fortunate.
I don't know the status of parenting in America. But I know a little about the status of education in America. Parents' growing inability to impose manners and limits on their kids when the kids are in school is reflected in record dropout rates, as well as teen drug and alcohol abuse, teen sex, and unwed pregnancies. Maybe it's parenting that's on the decline, more than the schools.
Click here to read the entire excerpt
Don't miss this other excerpt: Cafferty: My battle with alcoholism
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