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Executives may recieve multi-million dollar bonuses after all

Posted by satijournal • 12/15/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: bush, politics

Executive Pay Limits May Prove Toothless
Loophole in Bailout Provision Leaves Enforcement in Doubt

Congress wanted to guarantee that the $700 billion financial bailout would limit the eye-popping pay of Wall Street executives, so lawmakers included a mechanism for reviewing executive compensation and penalizing firms that break the rules.

But at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision, congressional aides said. The change stipulated that the penalty would apply only to firms that received bailout funds by selling troubled assets to the government in an auction, which was the way the Treasury Department had said it planned to use the money.

Now, however, the small change looks more like a giant loophole, according to lawmakers and legal experts. In a reversal, the Bush administration has not used auctions for any of the $335 billion committed so far from the rescue package, nor does it plan to use them in the future. Lawmakers and legal experts say the change has effectively repealed the only enforcement mechanism in the law dealing with lavish pay for top executives.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/14/AR2008121402670.ht...

It's not too late to impeach the bastard.

User Comments

12/15/08

Anok

That would be one a few very poor last minute choices Bush has/tried to make before he leaves office.

Looks like overcompensated executive failures still have a friend in Washington. *ugh*

[reply]
12/15/08

satijournal

Here are some more despicable acts Bush is pushing through before he leaves office that were in the paper today:

• A Sept. 4 environmental- impact statement clearing the way for oil-shale development, followed by Nov. 17 commercial-development rules and a Nov. 28 overhaul of six regional management plans to accommodate oil-shale projects.

• A permit for the Black Mesa Coal Mine on Navajo and Hopi tribal land in Arizona. The tribes were given a 45-day review period by mining officials, and a request for more time was denied. Permit approval is expected this week.

• A BLM sale this Friday of 163,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Utah near national parks, such as Arches and Canyonlands and Dinosaur National Monument. The plan that was needed to offer the leases was completed Oct. 3, and the sale was announced Election Day.

• Cutting the public-comment period from 60 to 30 days on rule changes to the Endangered Species Act by removing a Fish and Wildlife Service review that is intended to assure that key species are not jeopardized.

• Having no public-comment period on a plan to open 3,700 miles of new pipeline and power-line corridors across the West's public lands by having the plan approved at the Interior Department secretarial level. Western governors have until Dec. 30 to comment.

• Issuing an "aspirational" management plan for the Comanche and Cimarron Grasslands in eastern Colorado and Kansas on Oct. 17 with a 30-day comment period.
www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_11233553

Some of the land sold was for less than $2.00 an acre.

[reply]
1. 12/15/08
  
  Anok
  
  Don't forget the bill that he's trying to pass to limit/restrict the testing of poisonous and hazardous materials and exposure in work sites.
  
  www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/washington/30labor.html?ref=politics
12/15/08

xmarks

On future expenditures, can't they just not give the funds to companies that don't limit executive pay even if it isn't part of the law?

[reply]
1. 12/15/08
  
  Anok
  
  One would think...
2. 12/15/08
  
  satijournal
  
  Too late. The money's already spent.
3. 12/15/08
  
  Anok
  
  My husband suggested that we wait for a little bit, and then when these companies don't pay us back, we (individual citizens) sell the debts owed to collections agencies, and let them harass the companies for us
4. 12/15/08
  
  xmarks
  
  Sati: Not on the 335 billion spent but the remainder of the 700 billion.
12/15/08

Phoenix1962

It does not surprise me that Bush would make it so more good money would go the bad corrupt businesses. That is the republican way.

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