According to the Huffington Post, many Republicans oppose placing limits on CEO pay:
Senate Minority Leader Jon Kyl (R-AZ) blamed the “tone deaf” bankers for creating the political environment that allowed Obama to call for a cap.
“Because of their excesses, very bad things begin to happen, like the United States government telling a company what it can pay its employees. That’s not a good thing in America,” Kyl told the Huffington Post.
“What executives have done is troubling, but it’s equally troubling to have government telling shareholders how much they can pay the executives,” said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL).
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) said that he is “one of the chief defenders of Obama on the Republican side,” but “as I was listening to him make those statements [about executive pay], I thought, is this still America? Do we really tell people how to run [a business], and who to pay and how much to pay?”
I really don’t understand what the problem for Republicans is here- the Democratic proposal is not to tell every company all over the United States what to pay their executives, it is a proposal designed to protect taxpayer dollars. Unless I am mistaken (and I may be wrong with some details, if so correct me), what they are stating is that IF you take bailout money, meaning if you have driven your company so far into the ground that you have to come, hat in hand, to the American public for a bailout, the most you can be paid is a half a million dollars that year.
There is nothing wrong with that, and given these companies have spent the last few months blowing TARP funds on all sorts of nonsense, to include bonuses to employees, junkets, and new offices, it makes complete and perfect sense to me. Given that just today we are learning these banks and CEO’s got $80 billion too much money, this makes this even more sense. Additionally, there is an easy way to not fall under these regulations: don’t take any bailout money.
In other words, no one is having their pay limited except for people running companies that are on the dole. As the article notes, we already do this with another class of citizens- welfare recipients. However, there is an even better example from recent months of Senators deciding they should dictate how much people are made. Here is John Kyl, worried today about government telling employees how much they can make, just a few weeks ago:
Here is Sen. Inhofe in a press release opposing the auto industry bailout:
For example, there are no provisions in the language that specifically direct the ‘car czar’ to take any specific restructuring actions, such as renegotiating union contracts or debt obligations.
And then there is this:
The chief executives of Detroit’s Big Three auto makers appearing before Congress today don’t make the kind of money that Wall Street bosses pull down, but they could still face tough questions about executive compensation.
The legislation under consideration by the Senate would require the government to bar bonuses for executives making more than $250,000. The bill in the House of Representatives has similar provisions for those companies receiving loans, demanding no bonuses to employees making more than $200,000, no “golden parachutes” payouts to fleeing executives and “no compensation plan that could encourage manipulation of reported earnings to enhance compensation.”
Spokesmen at Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. said their companies are still reviewing the bills released Monday night but added that the auto makers are already taking steps themselves that would effectively institute similar kinds of caps.
In other words, they are perfectly content to dictate the wages of hundreds of thousands of auto workers who make 40-80k a year, but the notion of limiting Wall Street CEO’s to half a million dollars a year if (and only if) they take government money upsets them deeply. How clueless are these guys? Do they just think no one will notice?
Put aside the fact that they honestly have no idea what socialism is, but are they completely unable to see how this is playing in the public?
Obligatory Amazon link to The Corporation (irony is dead here).
Lola
20/20 is doing a big story about Wall Street execs paying for prostitutes with their credit cards. These guys are the new Public Enemy so Obama should be hitting ’em even harder. It’s quite sad what the Republicans new causes are: keeping Gitmo open and protecting Wall St. execs from salary cuts.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
Cue Tweety: "Has Obama overstepped his bounds in dictating American wages?" in 4..3..2..1
Evinfuilt
Hypocrisy from the Republicans? Consider me *yawn* unshocked.
ricky
Pointing out different positions taken by Sen. Imhofe on wages on very different matters proves only you are in league with the Weather Channel and, by extension, the Devil himself to undermine the Senator from Oklahoma and the underpinnings of man as stewards of the Judeo-Christian instructions we were all provided.
TimB
It’s not the "market" that sets CEO pay, it’s the shareholders of the company. Given that US taxpayers are now significant shareholders in these companies who accepted bailout funds we absolutely do have the right to set CEO pay, in fact, we’re supposed to.
Bootlegger
OMG! The Republicans are pro-CEO and anti-Union! When did that happen?!
Yessir, all they need is a little re-branding, as in hot-iron branding…
Talleyrand
Didn’t the Republicans block legislation that would have given shareholders more say in executive compensation?
Apsaras
God Bless The Republicans.
An executive for a company receiving massive government assistance in the form of TARP funds spends millions of company funds on perquisites and bonuses for him and his fellow executives? Why, it’s just the free market at work! Who are we littlebrains to question what the Captains of Industry do with Taxpayers’ money? It’s nothing short of Leninist to expect them to get by with paltry half-a-million-dollars a year. Why, with such a tiny payment package, they might pack up their vast stores of talent and go ruin some Other nation’s economy.
Save your Righteous Indignation, brothers, for when we find a woman on welfare has a nice TV and clean countertops.
Seriously though, I’m gonna go kick an Objectivist until I feel better.
Stuck
I will add this to Stuck’s "Republicans Are Idiots Bill" I’m drafting as we speak. It will be called the CEO Relief Earmark to rescue our destitute bidness leaders, and to free up cash for Trollop Procurement.
Meanwhile John Thune has cut to the chase and offered the Ultimate Wingnut Stimulus Bill amendment. It’s all of 8 pages in length, with every sentence saying, take the 900 bill and make every red blooded American cent into a tax cut. All of it, as in, ALL OF IT. No muss, no fuss and simple as Limbaugh’s mind. Today’s GOP -the party of one idea. That is all.
Tom Hilton
Well, sure…but President Obama has his own jet! Is there no end to Democrat hypocracy?
Will
I think Republicans are trained to hear "restrict rich people’s wealth", and by default be against it, since only Democrats ever want to restrict rich people’s wealth, and Republicans know they are supposed to be against Democrats. I think that’s about as deep as their thinking gets on the matter.
AnneLaurie
Brain-dead CEOs stealing the taxpayers’ bailout funds are the new Rethuglican Terri Schiavos. The Rethug’s natural parsimony with "their" tax money has been overridden by their knee-jerk religious loyalties… to their natal religion of "I Got Mine, Jack!"
Punchy
John, you dont understand contemporary Republicans. Obama could have demanded a clause that says if a company takes gov’t funds, their CEOs must cease skull-fucking kittens and diddling small boys in YMCAs, and you’d have Republicans lined up side by side decrying Obama’s draconian kitten and molestation rules. "How can this be America", Inhofe would blather, "if a red-blooded American can no longer taste the fruit of a hairless nutsack and the soft fur of a kitten’s earhole?"
MH
What you are missing is that Republicans are now just a hair’s breadth from openly advocating what they privately believe: that corporations should rule America. Corporations should decide who gets taxed, and what to do with those taxes, and they should not have to accept governmental restrictions because they should be the government.
There used to be a word for this. Funny how I can’t remember it.
blahblahblah
I have little faith in Democrats to actually serve their constituents. I have a great deal of faith in Republicans to serve their constituents. Too bad that Republicans consider their constituents to be a rich elite not the least loyal to the United States of America.
It is time for all fifty states to secede from our former great Union en masse.
Trinity
I truly hate them.
Notorious P.A.T.
As I wrote in another thread, I would have thought the #1 bad thing that happened because of Wall Street excess is the global economy nose-diving off a cliff. Telling a company what it can pay people sort of doesn’t really compare to that.
Civilized Crank
Don’t disagree, but what about those banks that were forced to take TARP funds, whether they needed to or not?
Martin
An autoworker making $40K isn’t going to drop $27K in soft money on a Senator. That’s as far as you need go to understand the GOP position on pretty much everything related to the bailout.
The GOP doesn’t do small dollar, therefore they care fuck-all about small income folks. The best thing about Obama’s campaign approach is that we here are important because we are where Democrats now go to win elections.
Perry Como
Meh. Limiting executive compensation hasn’t gone far enough. It will only apply to banks that take money in the future. They need to make that shit retroactive and if the bank doesn’t like it, they have 30 days to return whatever funds they have borrowed.
burnspbesq
This is part of the reason why we should take the Swedish solution and just temporarily nationalize the banks.
If we take that path, and some moran like Imhofe starts to whinge about limiting compensation of senior execs, the answer is simplicity itself.
"We own the fucking thing, moran. When you’re the owner, you get to decide how much you pay your employees."
Martin
The alternative to Wells Fargo not taking the funds is that Wachovia would have failed, and Paulson needed someone to buy them, and WF got the money to do that. BofA was forced to take money in order to finish their deal with Merrill. Same situation.
You can reasonably argue about the how Paulson handled it, but honestly, the alternative would likely have been that the government would have taken over all the large banks, producing the same result.
MBunge
"What you are missing is that Republicans are now just a hair’s breadth from openly advocating what they privately believe: that corporations should rule America."
I think I’m going to reread all my Marvel 2099 comic books this weekend. Where’s Warren Ellis’ Doom 2099 when we need him?
Mike
Ugh
Meanwhile John Thune has cut to the chase and offered the Ultimate Wingnut Stimulus Bill amendment. It’s all of 8 pages in length, with every sentence saying, take the 900 bill and make every red blooded American cent into a tax cut. All of it, as in, ALL OF IT. No muss, no fuss and simple as Limbaugh’s mind. Today’s GOP -the party of one idea. That is all.
INT. RESTAURANT – NIGHT
Thune pops into a chair in a swank night club. He’s wearing a tuxedo. The woman across the table from him is also Thune, but in a gown. He looks around the restaurant. Everyone is Thune in different clothes. Thune is panicked. The girl Thune across the table looks at him seductively, winks and talks.
GIRL Thune:
Tax cuts! Tax cuts! Tax Cuts!
Tax cuts…
Thune looks confused. The Thune waiter approaches,
pen and pad in hand, ready to take their orders.
WAITER Thune:
Tax cuts Tax cuts Tax Cuts?
GIRL Thune:
Tax cuts Tax cuts Tax Cuts
Tax cuts.
WAITER Thune:
Tax cuts Tax cuts.
(Turning to Thune)
Tax cuts?
Thune looks down at the menu. Every item is "Tax cuts."
He screams:
Thune:
Tax cuts!
The waiter jots it down on his pad.
WAITER Thune:
Tax cuts.
Thune pushes himself away from the table and runs for
the exit. He passes the stage where a girl singer Thune
is singing sensuously into the microphone. She is backed by a ’40’s style big band of Thunes.
SINGING Thune:
Tax cuts Tax cuts Tax Cuts
Tax cuts…
Thune flies through the back door…
Rome Again
I give up. I’m done. I’m just gonna kill myself now. This world makes absolutely NO FUCKING SENSE AT ALL.
SGEW
The image this has left in my brain is permanent. I shall now forever think of John Thune as John Malkovich, stranded by the N.J. Turnpike or furtively sniffing someone’s panties.
BigHank53
Well, now you know who the Republicans really work for, don’t you?
Fwiffo
Trying to understand Republican logic is bad for your mental health. Please stop trying; I’d hate to see you hut yourself.
@Perry Como:
The Dodd and McCaskill amendments were added to the sitmulus bill in the Senate last night. They’re way tougher than the Obama limits.
BDeevDad
No one will notice, because they’ll never get asked to explain it. It’s an actual policy question, not a political game question.
gbear
NPR ran a story this afternoon saying that for every $1.00 we dumped into AIG, we got $.60 worth of value, and that that value could still go down. Is that where the $80 B overpayment figure was coming from?
JL
Giving banks unrestricted use of tarp funds is not socialism but puttin on a restriction is? What am I missing? I think Martin @ 19 is right. Socialism depends on who your donors are.
Mnemosyne
They can give them back, as can any other TARP-accepting bank that doesn’t want to follow these terms. If they didn’t really need the money, it should be easy for them to refund it, right?
kuvasz
The GOP has to stamp out this kind of thinking, otherwise their big donors who run multinationals would likely be held to same type of scruntiny; maybe not today but in the future.
It is a premptive counterattack on the criticism about large salaries drawn by the captains of industry, which are simply kickbacks to the ruling class because these leaders are not worth the money.
Rick Taylor
We should be nationalizing these companies, taking them over, separating the good from the bad, and operating them temporarily in the national interest until we can find new owners for the worthwhile parts. It’s ridiculous playing games with them, well we’ll give you a few hundred billion but please don’t embarrass us by using billions of it for bonuses And while you’re at it could you loosen up your lending practices; the economy is nose-diving.
If a private investor were to fork up the kind of money we tax payers are going to be forking over, there would be no question who owned the company and no one would bat an eye. If bankers don’t like it, if they think it’s socl$m, there’s an easy remedy. Don’t invest hundreds of billions of dollars in creative financial investments you do not understand that tank when the housing market fails to go up forever causing the world economy to nose dive.
I see absolutely no reason for us to be spending hundreds of billions of dollars to support management and shareholders that have run their companies into the ground. None. In a normal financial environment they would go through bankruptcy. Since that is not an option, the government is going to have to take them over and fulfill that function itself.
Steve V
Seems to me that the salary limit for accepting federal assistance places an extremely strong incentive on the heads of these companies to run their companies in such a way as to avoid ever needing federal money. The end result should be CEOs running their companies much more carefully and many fewer companies needing to be bailed out. Isn’t this the kind of incentive structure Republicans should want?
Edit: Additionally, I suppose this would incentivize companies to file bankruptcy rather than seek bailout money. I suspect the CEOs would do better in BK than $500k. Hm.
Rick Taylor
Maybe they just don’t think Democrats will be smart enough to take this and run with it? Let’s hope they’re wrong this time.
Sigma147
Let’s not forget the last time that a president employed wage and price controls…
Of course, the wage and price freeze was applied to everyone. Although it was meant to last only 90 days, it wound up turning into over 1000 days of measures.
Too bad the wage freeze was imposed by a Republican president – Richard Nixon in 1971.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitextlo/ess_nixongold.html
http://www.econreview.com/events/wageprice1971b.htm
Another case of IOKIYAR
John PM
Not exactly; the Boart of Directors, usually through a compensation subcommittee, typically decides how much the CEO and other officers of a company will make. True, the shareholders elect the Boart of Directors, but the company typically picks the candidates and large shareholders can heavily influence who gets chosen.
@Punchy: #13
Had I been drinking coffee you would owe me a new keyboard and monitor.
Tsulagi
I expect the Pubs to use some of their powder on this one. The Taliban have no federal laws limiting CEO compensation. In fact they always dangle deferred comp bonuses like 72 virgins. No doubt Sessions sees the wisdom of his kindred insurgent brothers. Well, except maybe on the gender of the virgins.
Perry Como
@Fwiffo: Thanks. That sounds somewhat sane.
Stuck
@Sigma147:
This time is different. We will have them by their Gold Plated nuts via TARP money (if they take it) with force of law. If it gets passed and signed.
The Populist
WHOOSH is the sound I hear when I see the points go right over these idiots heads.
Hey fucktards, if this ain’t America as you say then blame yourselves for the debt hole you stuck us in. If these CEOs don’t like it, they can pay the TARP funds back and try to make a go of it on their own.
IF YOU TOOK PUBLIC MONEY TO BAIL YOURSELF OUT OF THE MESS YOU CREATED, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO CRY WHEN CONDITIONS ARE PLACED ON THOSE FUNDS.
For example. I own a company and get a loan from a bank or an angel investor. They make me sign an agreement and there are rules and stipulations that limit me on many things. Should I cry and say that is Un-American to the bankers/investors? My company has shareholders. They vote and scrutinize everything I do. Should I cry and tell them to leave me alone because my ideas are best?
You see, when you take money from others you should expect demands and rules until the day you pay it all back.
What is it about loans and bail outs do these fucks not get? Some of these GOP dimwits claim to be entrepreneurs in their civilian lives. How is that? They sure have zero concept of anything from what I can tell.
The Populist
Not exactly; the Boart of Directors, usually through a compensation subcommittee, typically decides how much the CEO and other officers of a company will make. True, the shareholders elect the Boart of Directors, but the company typically picks the candidates and large shareholders can heavily influence who gets chosen.
Banks and investors can set rules in exchange for capital. So can bankruptcy judges when a company files.
The Populist
Seems to me that the salary limit for accepting federal assistance places an extremely strong incentive on the heads of these companies to run their companies in such a way as to avoid ever needing federal money. The end result should be CEOs running their companies much more carefully and many fewer companies needing to be bailed out. Isn’t this the kind of incentive structure Republicans should want?
If they don’t do the right thing, they will scare away potential shareholders and investors.
The Populist
I bank at US Bank. Now they just bought Downey Savings and PFF Trust. They would never have bought those companies without being given some sweet Tarp fundage. Now if they don’t get into trouble and run their business properly, I’d advocate saying that they can be exempt from TARP rules for exec pay. Now if they start bleeding from the acquisitions and need more, then we place the limitations on them.
eclecticbrotha
If the Repootnicans are pissed at Obeezy, this should make their heads explode:
New Executive Pay Limits Added to Senate Stimulus
SpotWeld
Someone check me on this,
An instutituion is about to fail and therefore it’s CEO goes to the goverment for bailout money.
The goverment decides that if a company needs a bailout it has been managed poorly and the CEO must take a pay cut.
This is essentailly a performance based pay scale.
I thought performanced based wages was a major GOP talking point?
JenJen
"The Corporation"? New to me… anyone care to provide a synopsis?
TenguPhule
Only in the bathroom.
And only to get the hooker to lie to them.
The Populist
So is personal responsibility, fiscal conservatism and less government. Shit, when Stephanie Miller asked Mona Chasen why she cares whether Linda Sanchez has a child without being married to the father, Stephanie pointed out that she thought the GOP mantra was "keep government out of our personal lives." Mona told Stephanie that isn’t true.
Hypocrites.
cleek
their problem is Obama. and their position, in full, is: Obama must fail. so, they’re attacking on everything they can. it’s all about working the refs and steering the conversation and making the Dems fight everything, all the time.
it’s the standard GOP M.O.
El Cid
@The Populist: Of course, Mona Charen’s 2nd job in the Reagan White House was eagerly defending Reagan’s death squad and terrorist friends in Central America, so I don’t think she’s a stickler for moral consistency.
Joshua Norton
5:30 pm – a compromise deal from Repubs has been submitted to all the Dems to see if they’ll sign off on it. One recent Republican-proposed document outlined proposed cuts of more than $85 billion.
Most of that —$60 billion — would come from money Democrats want to send to the states to avoid budget cuts for schools as well as law enforcement, public transportation and other programs. Repigs want to increase defense spending. Like we don’t already spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined.
Three swing repigs could be:
Collins
Snow
Spectre
Terri
On Monday I sent Mel Martinez an email pressing him to stop playing obstructionist politics, and pass the Stimulus bill. I just got a reply.
The esteemed Senator informed me that in Feb 2008, he fully supported, and voted to pass, the Economic Stimulus package. Of 2008. That’s right 2008.
I just sent, what could be described as a blistering reply, to the Senator’s office. I’m sort of waiting for the knock on the door. I’ve sent every registered voter I know, a copy of the reply and urged them to write or call this obfuscating, patronizing sack of shit.
These assholes have forgotten they work for us.
Cabalamat
Which is entirely reasonable. Actually the proposals should go further, and be backdated. Do executives who have bankrupted their companies deverve perfomance bonuses? Of course not. If they got what they deserved, they would have to pay their employers (and the American public, for fucking the economy).
So I think their bonuses in previous 3 years should be clawed back, leaving them with a maximum of $500,000 salary per year.
srv
@blahblahblah:
I’m going to steal that. Perhaps the Democrats do serve a constituency, but it is on some other planet.
Mike
Here’s an interesting take on the CEO pay problem
from a real CEO. Don’t limit compensation, raise taxes on ‘it…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/opinion/06hastings.html
anonymous
minor quibble … but telling. Martinez is so clueless he doesn’t realize that shareholders do not set or have any control whatsoever in CEO compensation …. the Board of Directors does. Unless the corporation is incorporated in one of the Dakotas (can’t remember which one).
CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. (Ambrose Bierce)
Quaker in a Basement
are they completely unable to see how this is playing in the public?
Completely. Now hush. They might hear you.
eyeball
All in all, it’s looking like more good news for … John McCain!
eyeball
Obama is killing these guys. he’ll have prime-time TV next week, a town hall-orama tour in Fla. and Ind. … ABC — Always Be Closing. He has turned the GOPpers into the party of No and 0. let them hang in the windbaggery — when he signs this thing, confidence will rise and the next bubble will begin — the new energy and renewables and broadband-mania and biotech bubble. but it won’t be a stupid bubble because it will create real and needed stuff. ideally, some of this recent bubble of absolutely unnecessary and useless gaseous cable news and web-based shit-mongering will die off fast. enjoy the great game, my friends.
Wolfdaughter
This is a serious question, to which I hope some of you have the answer.
IS this getting out to the public in general? Are any of the major media covering this? Besides the NYT? I get all my news online so I don’t really know, except I know that Fox isn’t covering this or trying to make it seem like these evil socialists are trying to set the pay of these poor executives, all working their fingers to the bone to ensure the success of their various enterprises. Totally leaving out that these executives are asking for government handouts because their companies are FAILING.
So, is the public at large being informed of this scam?
cosanostradamus
.
No, I agree with the Republicans on this one small point. Let’s not limit executive compensation for taxpayer-bailed-out companies. Let’s just nationalize them, fire the exec’s, and Gitmo anybody who objects. All in favor, say "Aye."
The motion is carried. Pack your trash, Senators. Yer goin’a’ Gitmo!
.
Nancy Irving
The point about the auto workers is right on.
Also, though:
"…it’s equally troubling to have government telling shareholders how much they can pay the executives…”
Don’t they realize that by having injected so many billions of dollars into these companies, the U.S. taxpayer IS in effect the majority shareholder in these firms?
R-Jud
@JenJen:
It’s a documentary that looks at corporations as if they were individuals (just as the law does), evaluates them psychologically, and comes to the conclusion that most of them are psychopathic. You will get your rage on when you watch it.
different church-lady
C’mon John, I know you’re not that stupid. They are perfectly aware it’s only for companies that take bailout money. They are not stupid, they are not clueless, they are DELIBERATELY confusing the issue in an attempt to make it sound as though all government activity is bad.