The Wages Of Government "Help"

That's about the only way I can describe my reaction to this:

[I]n 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 twenty-five or fifty 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, 38-22, on a nearly party-line vote. (All Democrats voted for it, and all Republicans, with the exception of Representatives Ed Royce of California and Walter Jones of North Carolina, voted against it.)

Salary controls. The Democrats' dream come true. They wanna tell you how much you're allowed to make. WHY aren't more people pissed off about this?? Oh...because too many Americans are fools who believe that the way to prosperity is bringing down the rich people...you know, the people they want to be like if they had the guts to admit it.

God help us.

JASmius adds: Looks like the wage part of the wage & price controls that'll be coming in a few years after Red Barry's hyperinflation rockets into the ionosphere came a little early.

Remember last September when even most of the Right (Hugh Hewitt in particular) was shrieking that the government just HAD to intervene or the entire financial system would collapse?  This is one of the inevitable results.  When you accept "help" from the government, you bow the knee to them at the same time.  You enter indentured servitude from the first red cent with no hope of ever escaping it.  And you become every bit as corrupt as they are.

BTW, if you think that the feds are EVER going to divest themselves of their ownership interests in the financial and automotive (so far) sectors, at least under the current Donk junta, guess again.  Congressman Lollipop has confirmed it.

[h/t: Double-M]