It might be a hunch but I, for one, hope you're wrong about the GOP on this one.

Inhofe one of the chief defenders of Obama on the Republican side??

That really says quite a lot, doesn't it?

Yes! Go, Republicans! Fight on this!

Sheesh, these guys don't even know how to make at least a nod to populist concerns. Note that this is false in practice, even if not in theory:
"What executives have done is troubling, but it's equally troubling to have government telling shareholders how much they can pay the executives,"
Ummm - Not really. The shareholders don't decide directly what to pay the executives, the Boards do. The latter get into power in a very undemocratic way, and are incestuously dependent on the CEO (even George Will said, "they're each others' poodles.") Furthermore, they don't really practice free-market selection of value because it isn't *their own personal money* the Board is spending, rather they are allocating company funds. I wouldn't worry about getting the best value if I could buy X with someone else's money ...

In fact, shareholders have as much or more trouble with their "government" running the companies than we do our own government, and look how non-responsive and unrepresentative ours is - even with watchdog agencies, balance of power etc. that corporations don't have. The idea that shareholders do much more than pick already-inevitable Board members, make "scenes" at shareholder meetings to little effect, and collect dividends is mostly a myth.

tyrannogenius

Maybe these fellows should read up on debt convenants:

moneyterms.co.uk/debt_covenants

"Debt covenants, also called banking covenants or financial covenants, are agreements between a company and its creditors that the company should operate within certain limits ... Debt covenants are agreed as a condition of borrowing."

Private lenders do this all the time - but the government as lender should not???

I'm sure these same Republican senators objected to anyone complaining about how much the automobile companies were paying their unionized workforce. They did, didn't they?

What executives have done is troubling, but it's equally troubling to have government telling shareholders how much they can pay the executives

Was Inhofe trouble when his colleagues tried to tell companies how much they should be pay their production-line workers?

I'm thinking the answer is no.

Someone oughta publish a book called

"The Chief Defenders of Obama on the Republican Side"

It will be about the same length as

"Friends of Richard Nixon"

"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).

Well, Senator Moron, the government(i.e. the people) are shareholders now, so deal with it.

I'm sure these same Republican senators objected to anyone complaining about how much the automobile companies were paying their unionized workforce.

Excellent point

And one of the companies that screamed for help or they would go under is now offering to return the money they so desperately needed as soon as it started to cost some executives a few bucks.

Guess they really didn't need the bailout money so much in the first place, did they?

One might think that these moronic misfits of the midway, these imbecilic ideologues who dare to call themselves "Friends of the American People", are afraid that "the Government" might get the idea that it can limit the pay-scale of the United States Senate.

If Kyl and his ilk ever had to work on a "pay-for-performance" scale, we'd each be getting an additional $50 per year in our tax returns---because their "performance" reaches so far down the rabbit-hole that it's in dangerously-negative territory.

And all that that implies....

It seems to me that Democrats should be making the argument that a refusal to put salary and bonus caps in the original TARP legislation has already cost the tax payer $18 billion.

But I guess it's easier to attack NSF funding and Pell grants.

The amazing thing about this meme that is put out there by the Republicans that the government has no business in placing wage restrictions on the salaries of executives; is that these are the same people that during the debate on the bailout for the auto industry were opposed to bailing them out unless auto workers accepted additional cuts in their pay, below the ones they had already agreed to. The difference in question was about 3.00 per hour from the wages paid at the non union factories in the Red states.
The hypocrisy is just amazing....

Nothing gets Jon Kyl's panties in a wad quite like somebody suggesting the wealthy pay their fair share; except somebody suggesting that American workers should ever get a raise.

I do find it "troubling" that the government is proposing salary caps for these executives, when they should instead be proposing prosecutions, prison terms, and seizure of their ill-gotten gains.

I think what frightens those specific Repubs the most is the idea that failure should not be rewarded.

Inhofe (R-Torture) is claiming to be Obama's strongest Republican supporter? That buggers belief.

is the republican party trying to become a comedy act? i mean this has got to be a joke right? you just can't take these guys seriously any more.

Have the wheels completely flown off the repub machine? They used to be masters of manipulating broad philosphical points in the face of a contrary reality. This strikes me as not only a doomed fight, but one that's likey to further damage their tattered credibilty.

Wall St lost $48b last year while handing out $18b in bonuses. That alone inspired a fairly uniform reaction of "WTF?!?!"

Now, repubs want to go to the mat to maintain that level of lavish reward for catastrophic failue?

I've been saying for some time that modern conservatism has devolved from a political philosophy into a mental illness. They keep proving my point.

Some clown sitting in for Rush yesterday was hammering on this point. They seem to be arguing that we should hand over federal money and trust that the CEOs will use it wisely.

Slow learners, anyone?

Of course, the CEO of BofA is saying they don't need more TARP, and the other big guns will probably hold to the same course to avoid losing their pay.

I say that we need to apply the credit card rules to them, as they apply them to their customers. You borrowed money from the taxpayers. We are changing the terms. If you don't pay us back within 30 days, the new terms and restrictions apply to the entire balance in your bank. If you choose to fail, FDIC will protect the consumers you cover, but you and your associates, by willfully choosing to tank the bank over the need to protect your pay & bonuses, will be considered guily of fraud, and treated appropriately.

"Do we really tell people how to run [a business], and who to pay and how much to pay?"

When your doing it with my money, you're damn right you do!

If these motherfuckers don't want to take the multibillion dollar handout with strings attached, they don't have to.

Let some "private" company hire them and reward them for running another company into the dirt.

As for me, I'd like 5 minutes alone in a room with one of these bastards.

Something the GOPpers seem to forget is that a company's shareholders do not set executive salaries. That's done by the board of directors who oftentimes are hand-in-glove with the execs and pay little attention to their decisions and the consequences of those decisions. And the recommendations for executive salaries come from the executives themselves. As long as shareholders are getting what they view as a reasonable dividend check, the shareholders generally go along with the board's decisions on salaries. They just check the little "yes" boxes on their shareholder proxies, mail it in and wait for their next dividend. My point is, idiots like Mel Martinez can say what he likes about government deciding what companies can pay; but in these instances, government *is* a shareholder, a major one at that. I say, let the GOPpers keep fighting for their main beloved constituency: the execs who brought us to where we now find ourselves.

At what point do we stop listening to the idiotic ravings of madmen. At first it's mildly entertaining but after it repeats oh say 2 or 3 thousand times you just have to scratch your head and say wtf.

Br'er Rabbit set out a tar baby and Br'er Elephant stepped right in it.

forget about President BHO losing the narrative. The narrative is for stupid people. The Prez plays the long game.

I don't have a problem with limiting the compensation of the top executives of firms being supported by me, the US taxpayer. (If you are not currently paying income taxes, which would be about 40% of the working population, you shouldn't get a vote on this.) However, there are a couple of problems with the current program.

1) It's not clear to me whether it applies only to top executives or also to the worker bees who actually deliver for the company. At the best run I-banks, the CEO was not the highest paid employee - rather, the sales guys or traders who brought in the biggest profits made the biggest bucks. If you care at all about whether or not these now taxpayer-supported institutions do well or not, you should want them to continue to pay the worker bees who perform - and if they bring in huge bucks, they should be paid huge bucks, even if the institution as a whole is not making money.

2) The current plan allows executives to be compensated in restricted stock that won't vest until the government loans are paid off. This sounds great, but the result will be, I can guarantee, that some of these executives will become wildly rich. The restricted stock they get today will be worth very little, but if the company does well enough to pay off the government loans, that restricted stock will be worth a fortune. So, don't be surprised, and don't complain, when you read a few years from now about these executives walking away with restricted stock worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

I have been making the bass fishing analogy all week.

Here is the crystalized hypocrisy of Inhofe:

“In Congress, we are currently considering an irresponsible $14 billion bailout of the Big Three auto manufacturers... This legislation empowers one unelected bureaucrat, which has come to be known as the ‘car czar,’ to spend money how he sees fit to keep the auto companies afloat and make the U.S. government part owners of the companies. There are no provisions in the language that specifically direct the car czar to take any specific restructuring actions, such as renegotiating union contracts which has led to nearly a doubling of the cost per worker for the Big Three auto makers compared to their foreign competitors here in the U.S.

In other words: If you're going to have government take control of a company, the very least it could do is make sure it automatically cuts the wages of the workforce in half.

So, don't be surprised, and don't complain, when you read a few years from now about these executives walking away with restricted stock worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

And if it saves thousands of jobs and the middle class in the process, they will be entitled to it and I will be among the first to say so.

Shorter Republicans...

Government shouldn't tell shareholders how much to pay executives if they get a bailout. Government SHOULD tell shareholders how much to pay workers if they get a bailout.

Get it...got it...good

I wonder if Reed Hastings' op-ed in the NY Times made Inhofe's head explode. Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, recommended a 50 percent tax rate on CEO income over $1 million instead of the cap.

>"...these are the same people that during the debate on the bailout for the auto industry were opposed... unless auto workers accepted additional cuts in their pay"

RWA personality type answer "Oh, That's different"

Ethical and logical consistency have no place in these people's lives. That's a big part of what is wrong with this planet.

(If you are not currently paying income taxes, which would be about 40% of the working population, you shouldn't get a vote on this.)

Uh, where do you think my payroll taxes go, into a furnace? There's a reason that Gore talked about getting a "lockbox" for Social Security -- the feds have been using peoples' Social Security money for the general fund for years now, and Bush was no different than Reagan in that regard.

Please stop feeding everyone bullshit about how the only "real" tax is the income tax and all of the other taxes we pay don't count. You only make yourself look like an out-of-touch idiot.

""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)."

This is particularly rich since shareholders do NOT have the right to put executive pay to a vote.

This is particularly rich since shareholders do NOT have the right to put executive pay to a vote.

And if that right did exist, Republicans would oppose it.

I don't have a problem with limiting the compensation of the top executives of firms being supported by me, the US taxpayer. (If you are not currently paying income taxes, which would be about 40% of the working population, you shouldn't get a vote on this.)

The US government doesn't represent present payers of income taxes; it represents US citizens. Your right to have a voice in what the US government does with public resources is not based on paying federal income taxes, it is based on being a US citizen.

It's not clear to me whether it applies only to top executives or also to the worker bees who actually deliver for the company

Presumably, the top executives are among the "worker bees" that are supposed to be delivering for the company; anyhow, AFAIK its a maximum for employees of companies receiving the bailout.

The current plan allows executives to be compensated in restricted stock that won't vest until the government loans are paid off. This sounds great, but the result will be, I can guarantee, that some of these executives will become wildly rich.

Assuming they turn the companies around and the government loans are paid off, so what? You may listen to Rush, et al., and buy into the mythology that liberals/progressives hate the idea of people succeeding and becoming rich, but in the real world most of us don't, we just dislike the idea of the government deliberately favoring the already rich at the expense of everybody else.

OTOH, if those executives continue to mismanage their firms and they don't turn them around despite the government loans, the stock won't be worth much even when it vests.

I don't think many on the left object to employees (executive or otherwise) at bailed-out firms having positive economic incentive to see the firm succeed, we just don't want them looting the firm as it fails (and asks for more and more rounds of bailouts.)

I thought that the government was now a shareholder in the bailed out banks. Martinez is right on with his analysis but dead wrong on the facts.

cmdicely - I think it is unsustainable in the long run to have a country where only a small fraction of the population pays most of the income taxes and almost half of the population pays none. This creates vast mismatches between citizens some of whom care about the cost of Government and the effectiveness of Government programs and others of whom have no incentive to do so; the way it is now, if you don't pay income taxes, you don't care: it's all free.

My solution: Eliminate payroll taxes altogether and instead increase income taxes sufficiently to the point that the same overall revenues are raised. I would have two brackets: [15]% of all income up to $X; and [25]% of all income over $X. (I'd eliminate all deductions and credits, too.) That way everyone pays income taxes, everyone is in the same boat, we're all in this together. I'm not an economist so I'm just guessing at the right percentages but theoretically you could structure this so that the overall distributional burden falls approximately where it does today - i.e., you would't be benefitting the "rich" or the "poor" although surely some individuals would be helped or hurt by any such dramatic change.

No one seems to like this idea, not on the left or the right or in the middle, but I think we need to do something about the fact for some citizens Government is "free" while others pay for most of it.