Kansas City Star: Obama takes cue from McCaskill; caps corporate pay

April 02, 2009

Kansas City Star - Prime Buzz

Judging by all the phone calls, emails and press attention she's gotten, a lot of people agreed with Sen. Claire McCaskill's tirade last week about capping executive pay.

Including President Obama.

He offered his own plan this morning that would limit the top salaries at firms receiving bailout funds to $500,000.

Their executives, he said, have helped "wreck havoc on the financial system."

"What gets people upset - and rightfully so - are executives being rewarded for failure, especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers," Obama told a press conference this morning.

"We're taking the air out of golden parachutes."

McCaskill's plan is tougher. The Missouri Democrat didn't think corporate chiefs on welfare should earn any more than the president himself - $400,000.

On the Senate floor last Friday, she gave an angry speech about Wall Street executives who awarded themselves $18 billion in bonuses after receiving billions in taxpayers dollars to help them survive.

"They don't get it," McCaskill said. "These people are idiots ... What planet are they on?"

After Obama's press conference, she said, ""Everyone is on the right track here....If a company has to rely on federal tax dollars to stay afloat, they have no business using it to pad the pockets of their executives."

Her Senate speech triggered a flood of comments and drew the attention of the White House.

She intends to offer her bill as amendment to "any and every vehicle on the floor," said Aide Adrianne Marsh. "She feels it has to happen sooner as opposed to later."

Democratic Rep. Dennis Moore of Kansas got in touch with McCaskill's office after her speech. Along with Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, he intends to offer a similar bill in the House.

"I am growing more and more frustrated, as are my constituents, with the irresponsible and reprehensible actions of some of the very financial services corporations that every American taxpayer has helped financially over the last few months," Moore said in a statement this morning. "The American people deserve better."

Obama said the corporate executives came "hat in hand" for money, then took "lavish" perks.

"It's the height of irresponsibility...the culture of narrow self-interest," the president said.