Since PubliCola's D.C. correspondent, the young Mr. Kissel, is in Austin, Texas cavorting and galavanting at some hippie music festival, allow me to file this report on the most recent vote from Congress:

Eight of Washington state's nine U.S. Reps. voted for the 90 percent tax on bonuses paid out to employees of A.I.G and other firms that got bailout (or TARP) money.

All of Washington state's Democratic Reps. voted for it.

And despite the conservative criticism that the legislation is a scary show of government power that could be used to single out anybody, (a sound bite Jay Leno threw at Obama—and Obama fumbled), most of our state's Republicans voted for the legislation. Indeed, both ideologue-ish Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-5, WA, ) and Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA, 8) voted 'Yea' the 90% tax. 

The outlier in Washington state's delegation was GOP Rep. Doc Hastings (R-4, WA), who voted 'No' and supported an alternative Republican plan to simply get all the A.I.G. bonus money back. Here's his statement.

And an important footnote here:

There's an obvious rejoinder to Leno's demagogue logic that the targeted tax is a creepy show of federal power. It's this: A.I.G. and other firms aren't being picked on. It's not like Congress scrolled through the phone book at random and found all the unpatriotic sounding names. 

A.I.G. and other firms that got bonuses (including Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Morgan Staley) were originally singled out for a dose of favorable special treatment—$700 billion in special treatment. Taxing the misuse of those government funds is hardly a McCarthy-esque witch-hunt, it's holding recipients of public dollars accountable, which is done all the time. Or should be.