Well, it looks like those companies who took federal bailout money are learning an old lesson: When you take the king’s gold, you play the king’s tune.

Congress, outraged that employees of companies they feel they bought and paid for are getting bonuses, are moving to impose hefty taxes — as high as 100% — on those bonuses. Never mind that the bonuses were allowed under the very bailout laws Congress itself passed.

Wednesday, AIG’s chairman, Ed Liddy, spent most of his day not trying to salvage the tattered giant, but sitting on Capitol Hill getting excoriated by members of Congress for his choice to honor legally-binding employment contracts and not refuse to pay legally-obligated bonuses.

It is imperative to note that Mr. Liddy was not even part of AIG when the ruinous decisions and actions were taken. He was retired when the federal government brought him in — for the annual salary of $1.00 — to try to keep the company from complete and utter collapse.

Had I been Mr. Liddy, I would have entered the hearing room with a single dollar bill in my shirt pocket. And when the lambasting got more than I could stand, I would state “I didn’t seek this job, you sought me,” return my salary, and walk out.

In AIG’s case, the bonuses do rankle a bit. How does one justify them?

Well, for starters, most of the people who brought the company down have left the company. Those still working in the divisions that caused the problems are working to stem the hemorrhaging in preparation for amputation. They are in jobs that hold no future; the bonuses and whatnot are to keep them from just walking out.

Other companies that took federal bailout money are now seeing that money from the federal government comes with strings attached. They have added to their old management structure a whole new set of bosses: 535 members of Congress, many of whom have never run any kind of business.

And if getting their way means passing laws that violate — at least in spirit — the Constitutional prohibitions against ex post facto laws (you can’t make things illegal retroactively) and bills of attainder (you can’t write a law that punishes an individual or a specific group), then so be it. If they choose to publicly flog you and make it clear they have no faith or confidence in you, you take it. If they second-guess your every move and deride your decisions and make dire threats for doing what they disapprove of, too bad.

You do all this because they can’t only fire you. They can strip you of your legally-contracted payments (including bonus and severance packages), and they can destroy your reputation.

That is the risk you run when you go to the federal government, hat in hand.  Those are the strings — or chains — that come attached to government money.

The kings and queens of Capitol Hill are calling the tune. Those who took their gold must play it, or suffer.

And those of us who fill the coffers of the government can only watch and weep, for we are the ones who coronated them.