Simple solution. Reinstitute the 1950s era tax structure, with 90% marginal rates over a million dollars.

To the guy that threw the shoes: Thank you.
My feelings exactly...

What a shock to think that this administration would apply a change to legislation that would enable the corporate-crats to pillage yet even more from the rabble. More and more, Bush and friends resemble the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinnette.

Too bad the resemblance stops with emptying the treasury and then the taking of the working class's earnings. (For generations to come).

I agree with jayackroyd, all that money sloshing around high up has made the economy top heavy and unstable. Trickle down means workers are busy building yachts, trinkets and babbles for the rich. We should be educating our children and building health clinics instead.

The impotence of the pay restrictions could have been found in other places some time ago, for example Dean Baker's blog. The WaPo deserves no credit for this story.

I'll bet ol' Georgie made their Christmas card lists on that one. I think I'll send him my shoes.

Shrub behaving exactly in character. GOP behaving exactly in character. When in the hell are the Donkeys going to learn (and grow a pair while they are at it)? Reminds me of Charlie Brown, Lucy and the football.

I can't believe this is how it went down. Was Congress really stupid enough to not realize they were being hoodwinked by the chimp? The very people who are so practiced at inserting loopholes into every bill, didn't see what the administration was doing? They should all be taken behind the woodshed and put out of our misery.

I'm with jayackroyd on that 1950's tax structure. And the video of the shoe hurling is going to be a SNL classic.

I'm sorry, but if the Democrats had been genuinely concerned with the issue of executive pay, there would have been far tougher executive pay regulations all the way along.

Lets face it, the Democrats are "liberal" in the sense that that they favor certain hot-button social issues such as gay marriage, but with respect to economic issues such as executive pay or to defense issues such as FISA or Iraq, they betray their true colors by rolling every time.

Time after time there are Republican "filibusters" ( which the Democrats somehow never managed to muster ) or Bush loopholes. Obama is now telling us to pay no attention to his Clinton-Bush cabinet and just wait for the actual policies.

And, given the economy, I can use some money. So who wants to take me up on my wager that - come, say, Marh - that gosh Obama has to "save his political capital" and "be pragmatic" and "reach across the aisle to get things done" so lo and hehold he can't push his progressive agenda right now.

So just wait. Tomorrow! Tomorrow! There's always tomorrow! It's only a day away!

What I want to know is why, after 8 years of Bush screwing them by just making up his own shit with regards to Congressional passed legislation, this comes as a surprise? I mean why didn't the expect this? There may not have been anything they could do to prevent it but they can't say he hasn't pulled this type of shit before.

From what I understand, the executive pay restrictions even if TARP was enacted as it was originally proposed was pretty flimsy and full of loopholes. In hindsight, this actually looked like yet another dog and pony show by the useless Congressional Dems, another in a very very VERY long list of dog and pony shows to make their constituents think they are opposing the Bush Administration without actually doing it.

Hell, I bet Chuck Schumer is happy about this.

This "story" is a non-story, period. As I blogged when the bailout was passed, specific executive perks that were contractually guaranteed couldn't be touched anyway, and as most executive perks ARE contractually guaranteed, this was smoke and mirrors, a dog and pony show or whatever you want to call it.

Note what Grassley himself said:
"The flimsy executive-compensation restrictions in the original bill are now all but gone."

Unlike Duncan Kinder, those of you actually shocked there's an additional loophole can grow up some day.

Wealthcare.

Taking care of the wealth of a few at the expense of the many.

God Bush America!

(and he did).

After Madoff's fall...isn't anyone waking up to the fact that Bush and gang are robbing the till on their way out the backdoor?

I bet all Hedge funds are giant Ponzi schemes.

Speaking of loopholes, Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes couldn't understand why Barney Frank couldn't force Henry Paulson to use the bailout to protect homeowners. She seemed to think it was Frank's fault that Paulson isn't following the letter of the law. "Why did you write a bill he wouldn't enforce?"

No one could have predicted....

Regulating pay in our free market (or whatever you want to call it) system seems like a non-starter to me. Correcting for inflation, the 91% federal income tax rate on income over $400,000 in for example 1952 would translate to income over $2.4 or $3.1 million, depending on whose inflation calculator you use. I've personally long advocated a return to something like this. It would address the ridiculous inequities of baseball players (or network newsreaders or CEO's and their buddies or whoever) making 162 million or whatever the current record is that our system produces. Also the Republican idea of always reducing capital gains taxes etc., which shifts incentives to making, or figuring out how to report, income in other ways needs to be corrected. Maybe Barry's understanding (OK, I'm just hoping and sorta making this up) of each individual and their income as a part of their participation in the whole economy and work and resources and infastructure etc., not as independent, cowboy miracle workers will produce a change in this direction.

emjayay,

Baseball players are entertainers. Like all entertainers, if they put a lot of butts on seats, they bring in a lot of money. In addition, they are also sales/advertising "executives" ensuring bigger sales of products with their endorsements. Whether they get paid all the money made off their backs, or not, someone is going to end up with it, and it's not likely to be us.

It wouldn't make any difference. Either the high earners would find a different way to be compensated, or the money would flip to the owners of the company, who would offshore/tax-shelter it.

It needs to be a cut that's large enough to bring in real money, but not so large that it's *always* worked around. In practice, anything over 50% is going to look too greedy.

Royalbluetom: Yeah, you're right, I get all that. Practically, there's only so far you can go with income tax rates. You certainly don't hear so much about "tax shelters" - inefficient investments designed mainly to reduce tax liability for upper income earners - as you did when rates were higher etc. I was really talking about a direction to go based on a more collective understanding of society and economics. You know, that communis idea of spreading the wealth Barry made the mistake of mentioning a couple months ago, in line with what some posters above were saying. So, if reducing income inequality is the goal, how do you move in that direction? Sure, in the long run, vastly better education and training. But productivity increases of everyone in general have gone entirely to upper incomes in the last couple of decades. CEO's and their buddies now making a zillion times the median wage instead of only a couple hundred times....and what exactly is different about Europe in that regard? Taxes? Minimum wages? Zeitgeist? What to do??...

They want to bring workers' salaries into line with Japanese workers' salaries.

How about bringing CEO pay in line with Japanese CEO's pay?