Barack Obama is truly mad at those CEOs of financial institutions receiving big salaries, and he's going to do something about it, doggone it:
"President Barack Obama on Wednesday imposed $500,000 caps on senior executive pay for the most distressed financial institutions receiving federal bailout money, saying Americans are upset with “executives being rewarded for failure.”
Hmmm. What's next? Will he target those institutions' CFOs? Department heads? What about the vice-presidents?
And how far will this kind of thing go? Some Hollywood actors and actresses make huge salaries, after all...
Ah, the perils of big, intrusive government. Remember though that we shouldn't be surprised at this. This kind of legislation is right in line with Democratic Party history. Remember FDR? Remember the New Deal? By 1935-36 bashing the rich became a centerpiece of Roosevelt's New Deal, as his administration jacked up taxes on the rich, installed luxury taxes on expensive items, and FDR lambasted the wealthy as "economic royalists" and said he "welcomed their hatred." It strikes me that Obama may be trying to pattern his actions a bit along the lines of the New Deal's legacy. Democrats tend to think bashing the rich is good politics. We'll see if it is.
