UPDATED: Geithner power grab continues as Barney Frank advances bill to control *all* employee salaries at bailout companies

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UPDATE: See my later post with video of Cavuto’s interview with the author of this piece ‘o’ turd legislation. Turns out he’s a real newbie… a fresh face from January, and already somebody’s “water boy”.

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Trust me.. you don’t want to hear my own commentary. Read it and weep. From Byron York at the Washington Examiner today:

It was nearly two weeks ago that the House of Representatives, acting in a near-frenzy after the disclosure of bonuses paid to executives of AIG, passed a bill that would impose a 90 percent retroactive tax on those bonuses. Despite the overwhelming 328-93 vote, support for the measure began to collapse almost immediately. Within days, the Obama White House backed away from it, as did the Senate Democratic leadership. The bill stalled, and the populist storm that spawned it seemed to pass.

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the “Pay for Performance Act of 2009,” would impose government controls on the pay of all employees — not just top executives — of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

The purpose of the legislation is to “prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards,” according to the bill’s language. That includes regular pay, bonuses — everything — paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.


The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested. And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds.

In addition, the bill gives Geithner the authority to decide what pay is “unreasonable” or “excessive.” And it directs the Treasury Department to come up with a method to evaluate “the performance of the individual executive or employee to whom the payment relates.”

The bill passed the Financial Services Committee last week, 38 to 22, on a nearly party-line vote. (All Democrats voted for it, and all Republicans, with the exception of Reps. Ed Royce of California and Walter Jones of North Carolina, voted against it.)

continue reading in full… bill comes to House vote this week

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Can we restrict Frank’s pay for poor performance and lack of accountability? I didn’t think so.

But you may be able to restwict it. 😉

I’m sorry but ever since the SNL skit and then seeing him speak and actually try to act like a politician, it is hard to take this clown seriously.

Then to watch O’reilly sit and try to get him to MAN UP and take responsibility for a statement he made was simply jaw dropping.

How it is that these imbeciles end up in office?

barney frank is a twit and he was the kid on the playground that everyone beat up. he is pulling this crap because he isn’t good enough to have a real job. he is a career politician and has no idea about the real world.

The Law of Unintended Consequences will rule once more.

Top execs will bitch and moan in public, but behind closed doors they’ll laugh it up big time. If the company doesn’t crash, everyone enjoys their fat paychecks and juicy bonuses. If the company crashes, it’s no big deal – they’ll just select a scapegoat and blame away.

In any event, the lawmakers also know that this is how the game is played; the legislation is just to appease the peasants, and to make the politicians look like they really care.

They’ll give some speeches about how it’s about time that someone looked out for the little guy, and the Dems will add that we need to do something different from how the last administration [mis]handled similar opportunities to act in the taxpayers’ best interest.

The union officials and/or company execs will cry crocodile tears and complain how it’s unfair because they’re the experts at their jobs, and who is congress to judge their performance. There will be some compromises on the bill, but it will get passed as everyone congratulates themselves for doing such a fine job in being super-duper responsible with the tax money that they wish they didn’t have to use.

Of course, Obama will have a grand celebratory signing event, with Nancy and Harry and Barney engaged in an orgy of sincere congratulations for saving so much waste, and that this is the shape of the government of the future.

So in the end, it wil be just another acting performance by the corporations and legislators. Ho-hum (and pass the popcorn.)

Jeff V

Jeff V

Mata,

Don’t get me wrong; I fully appreciate the excessive reach that this has, but I wanted to (sort-of) predict the spectacle that we’re going to witness yet again. Without a doubt, EVERYONE has to be wary of such unprecedented governmental invasion.

What I didn’t mention in my previous post was the role of the ACLU. It will be very interesting too see if they are going to accept the challenge of defending individual liberties.

I really think we need to do EXACTLY the same thing for our politicians. After all, they work for us, and accept taxpayer funds to do so. I wonder how one brings up such an issue; we can start by putting together a board of citizens with a broad smattering of experience in public service, and make it their duty to review the salaries of every one of the members on Congress. We have to be fair, and ensure that we base our recommendations on job performance, designing a sampling study to determine just how well citizens feel that their “public servants” have been “serving the public.” At the very least, even if was just an exercise done on a small scale, the results could be eye-opening. I wonder if I could get somebody to help me write a grant proposal to put together such a study. I could always say that I’m with ACORN!

Kidding aside, I do understand your point about every single employee potentially having to meet some stranger’s performance “metrics,” and the idea is pretty scary. I expect to see somebody bring a lawsuit to the Supreme Court over this. It shouldn’t be too hard to establish standing, since anyone working for any institution has the potential to be affected directly. Maybe the ACLU will threaten to bring a class-action suit against the government if this measure passes.

Jeff V

Barney Frank has the nerve to demand ‘performance standards’ for pay, if that were the state of affairs in Congress, he’d owe the American public BIGTIME, not be drawing a salary of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I also think this bill is a trojan horse for democrap pay equity mandates. It will be deemed ‘excessive’ or ‘unreasonable’ if there are differences in pay between men and women, regardless of experience.

3-7-77.
Look up Montana Vigilantes. It should explain it. Otherwise contact me and I will fill you in.

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Mata note: Took the liberty of adding a historical link about the Montana Vigilantes from the magazine, Montana, The Magazine of Western History.