“We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street that are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer.”
–Senator Claire McCaskill
Finally, someone has the guts to stand up against these crooked CEOs and Wall Street executives.
Senator Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, is trying to pass the Chief Executive Officer Pay Act of 2009, which would cap the compensation of all executives for companies accepting federal help. This law would limit compensation of all employees to that of the President of the United States, and it would include all compensation, including bonuses and stock options. The president currently makes $400,000 a year. According to the speech above, this cap would be in effect for companies until they paid back every dime of aid that they received.
What a great idea! Seriously, how can these people even claim to be worthy of such compensation when they’ve sunk our economy into the ground. With $18 billion paid out in bonuses, it was both the sixth largest bonus year AND the worst performing year in history. As Obama said yesterday, it’s “shameful.”
Rudy Giuliani, on the other hand, is defending these outrageous payouts.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani defended corporate bonuses Friday, saying that cutting them also means slashing jobs in the Big Apple.
“If you somehow take that bonus out of the economy, it really will create unemployment,” he said on CNN’s “American Morning.” “It means less spending in restaurants, less spending in department stores, so everything has an impact.”
I‘m glad that Giuliani has removed references to 9/11 from his post-candidacy speeches, but I can’t help thinking that he has proven once again that he was the wrong man for the presidency. Does he seriously think that someone making $400,000 is too poor to spend at restaurants? Even if it turns out that they are, there’s no justification for a company to pay $18 billion in bonuses after begging for federal help.
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