Barack Obama has received criticism from some conservatives for his decision to limit bailout money to corporations which agree to cap salaries at $500,000. I think the criticism is misguided, and I commend the president for taking this step.
We should be wary of government extending its tentacles into American business, of course, and businesses should, as a rule, be regulated primarily by the market, not by bureaucrats. Even so, and even though the bailout may be a bad idea, given that it's going to happen, it's simply obscene that corporations which are taking huge sums of money from taxpayers are giving it to CEOs in multimillion dollar bonuses - stipends which are often essentially rewards for failure.
If our tax dollars are going to subsidize a corporation, then it's simply prudent to demand that the corporation's CEOs be required to tighten their very ample belts and spend that money on making their business solvent. Those who think otherwise might ask themselves what they would do if a relative came to them for a loan to help them out of a very difficult financial situation, and, having agreed to grant the loan at some cost to themselves, they then learned that the relative decided to use part of the money to go on a Caribbean cruise.
I think they'd probably tell the relative that that's not how they understood the money would be used, but if that is what their relative plans to do with it there won't be any more of it forthcoming. Likewise, neither should the taxpayers be paying for the "Caribbean cruises" of corporate executives.
Kudos to the president for seeing the matter the same way.
RLC
