Thread: McCain wants to limit execs to $400,000

McCain wants to limit execs to $400,000 - Mike Allen - Politico.com


By MIKE ALLEN | 9/21/08 8:36 PM EDT Text Size:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Sunday that bank executives who take the mortgage bailout should have an annual salary limit of $400,000, a substantial pay cut that could dramatically reduce participation in the program.

McCain also told CNBC's John Harwood that the mortgage bailout should be overseen by an oversight board of "respected people" like former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and legendary investor Warren Buffett.

I like this idea.

"As much as I admire Secretary Paulson, we've got to have more people that're respected by Americans," McCain said in an interview in Philadelphia. "We're spending as much or more than a trillion dollars on this. We all know, this is the greatest crisis we've faced, clearly, since the end of World War II."

Such oversight would diminish the power of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, but McCain said that he's skeptical of "placing all those responsibilities in the hands of one person."


"Obviously the rescue is absolutely called for," McCain said. "I respect and admire Secretary Paulson. But as far as I can tell, we're placing all those responsibilities in the hands of one person. I think we need to appoint an oversight board of the most respected people in America, such as maybe Warren Buffett, who's a Obama supporter; Mitt Romney, Mike Bloomberg, so that there can be some kind of oversight of, instead of just putting all this responsibility on a person who may be gone in four months."

McCain also blasted a plan by Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy last week, to set aside $2.5 billion in bonuses for its executives. The bonus pool was first reported by The (London) Sunday Times, and was on the front page of Sunday's New York Post as "GALL STREET."


"I notice at Lehman ... some $2.5 billion in compensation," McCain said. "If they're bankrupt, where did they get that? But the major point is that no CEO of any corporation or business that is bailed out by us, that is rescued by American tax dollars, should receive any more than the highest paid person in the federal government."

Brogers would have a problem with this.....but then again he actually could be a rich CEO.....I will kidnap him and cut off his penis and send it to the IM press as proof that I have him.

The highest paid person in the government is the president, who makes $400,000 a year, just under twice as much as the House Speaker and the Chief Justice.

Harwood asked McCain: "What do you say to conservatives in your party who look at this and say, `Wow, this is a lot closer to socialism than to free market capitalism'?"

McCain replied: "I say to them: 'I'm with you in spirit, but I remember the S&L crisis, and we had to go in, we created the RTC, and we had to go in and fix these problems.' The Japanese, as we know, had a crisis some years ago. They didn't fix it, and their economy has limped along, as we all know. So this is going to require drastic action. The role of government in our society is clearly that we help Americans who are being hurt by circumstances beyond our control."

Originally Posted by bio-chem

i think there is some "left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing" going on. how is mino going to chop off a penis and send it to the IM press? which is also mino.

Good one.