The people are angry. Well, what’s new? The people are always angry. About what and at whom, and is it likely that your house will get burned down by rioters — those are the operative questions.

I suppose we could add: Is the anger warranted?

Ever since last Thursday, resentment’s been swelling in many quarters about government plans to initiate a surtax of varying amounts to salaries and/or bonuses of varying amounts at varying companies, the latter of which are most likely to have received some government bailout money. The house bill that has passed so far (328-93) would levy a 90% tax on bonuses for employees who have over $250,000 in family income, when said bonuses are paid by companies that have received at least $5 billion in government bailout money.

The anger-inducing house bill — and other plans like it — were themselves induced by anger over the $165M AIG paid in bonuses to some of its top employees, despite having been infused with $182.5B in taxpayer funds. Quoth Sage-of-the-House Nancy Pelosi:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, told colleagues, “We want our money back now for the taxpayers. It isn’t that complicated.”

This despite clear evidence that those very words must be highly bewildering, since the Obama administration and members of Congress frown in puzzlement and scurry into their Lincoln Towncars on important business whenever they’re voiced by the American taxpayers in response to our impressive new (planned) $3.6 trillion budget.

So should we be cross about the new tax bill?

Well, yes. For one thing, it would seem that U.S. taxpayers are collectively 80% shareholders in AIG; that means that it’s only fair we get our own shot at running the company into the ground as we see fit. In our republic, we elect representatives to run things into the ground for us, and so it’s only fitting that Congress should use our shares as weight behind any reforms that need to occur.

But the mechanisms for doing so are fairly important here. After all, there already exist processes for shareholders and board members to apply pressure within a corporation to effect change. In this particular case, AIG issued shares of preferred stock to a trust appointed by the U.S. Treasury; the preferred stock is convertible into common stock, and confers all the shareholder voting rights that accompany it. It’s therefore rather heavy-handed and absurd to sidestep that machinery by fabricating and rushing through a hardly-read and unwieldy new tax law.

Look a bit further, though, and you will find a very good reason for circumventing corporate governance: retroactivity. Naturally, the presumed law would conveniently apply to the AIG bonuses already paid out, while votes on the board are proactive only. Now, if a retroactive law doesn’t strike you as just a little bit unjust… well, you probably aren’t reading this sentence. That’s not all, though: we now know that Sen. Christopher Dodd, at the behest of Treasury, modified the bill to specifically exempt the already-existing AIG bonuses:

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Treasury told Congressional aides that trying to place limits on contracts already signed would create legal problems and could lead to lawsuits against the government.

It’s been amply established, then, why We The People, in throwing our anger about here and there, are basically responding in an emotionally therapeutic and quite appropriate manner to the political incompetence of our elected officials. Fortunately, this coin has two sides, and now that Congress has greatly enriched their abilities to fail not only at their own jobs but at those of Wall Street, we land on tails. Which is fitting, because that’s all you’re going to see of competent financial experts as they flee bailed-out companies that no longer provide the bonuses to which they’re accustomed:

“Commodity traders are already moving to companies like BP where they can make as much money as they used to,” said another banker at a US firm.

Bankers at Deutsche Bank said it could benefit from the proposed legislation by poaching its US rivals’ most talented employees.

They’re called retention bonuses for a reason.

This morass of deceit, moral hazard, and increasing economic wreckage does point to one possible conclusion: that perhaps the bailouts never should have taken place at all.

But good news is ever on the horizon: Timothy Geithner has hatched a bold plan to broaden salary and bonus caps to all financial institutions, not timidly stopping with only those that have received bailout funds. So for readers at home, feel free to magnify by Panic Level Orange any dread you may have felt in reading that last pair of quotes.