Sorry, but a vanity was required, as I have seen much talk about the 401k issue but NONE regarding how it could be an ex post facto law, and therefore, unconstitutional.
You are not very good at googling. Congress has passed retroactive financial legislation dozens, if not hundreds of times. Ex post facto refers to being charged with a crime that became a crime after the act was committed.
* By definition, it can't be an ex post facto law. It'll simply be policy implemented retroactively, like the Clinton tax hikes. It's a subtle, but important distinction and therefore neatly sidesteps all of that constitutional mumbo jumbo.
* You assume they've read the Constitution, and understand what Article 1, Section 9 says. Case in point, our illustrious VP-elect doesn't know which article of the Constitution defines the executive. You'd think he would have started at the beginning, and read Article 1 to get to Article 2. Since he's unfamiliar with article 2, it's not that much of a leap to believe that he never actually got as far as Article 1, section 9.
* On a related point, you wouldn't expect our President elect or VP elect to be bound by article 1 section 9 anyway. It's about limits on Congress. Never affected them- they were Senators.
* It depends on what your definition of “No” is. There's certainly significant room for doubt of the intent and room for interpretation of lengthy sections of legalese such as “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”
* Words like “ex post facto” are big words, difficult for our friends on the left to understand. Heck they don't even sound like English, not that English is officially our language or anything like that. Besides, Latin isn't one of the approved alternate languages, so any inconvenient phrases can simply be ignored.
* You assume that they actually care about Constitutionality in sense of constructionism in the first place. With Obama appointing the next Justices to the court, you're going to see the Constitution become a “living” document in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. There are going to be penumbras and radical interpretations squirting out from all sorts of odd places in the document. From this point on, the Constitution means what they say it means.
* And finally, you simply don't understand how selfish you are being in the assumption that that money was yours in the first place. In this new political age, it is your duty to spread the wealth around, and if you won't do it on your own, our new Social Democrat overlords will be more than happy to remove that burden from you.
Happy to be here to help you understand the folly of your position in this new political age. Time for another shot of Victory Gin.
Why didn’t you post an article on the 401k issue, and then provide your comment? That’s how FReepers have done it for years.