Senator Calls for $400k Pay Cap; Calls Wall Street “Idiots”
January 31st, 2009 at 2:46 pm - by admin
Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, introduced legislation Friday suggesting that a pay-cap should be induced for employees of companies who accept federal funds for stabilization or bailout purposes - that is, no employee, including executives, should be allowed to make more than the President of the United States, Barack Obama.
President Barack Obama is paid $400,000 per year at the moment. The compensation limit would include stocks, options, bonuses and direct salaries.
Earlier this week, the President’s office called up a number of Wall Street and banking executives to have them “fix” their “mistakes” in spending bailout money on bonuses, and in particular, one $50 million French jet - planned to be purchased by Citibank executives, when Obama officials made the “popular” move of calling executives at the company and requiring they cancel the order.
Obama additionally publicly chastised the companies this week for what he called a “shameful” decision in spending $18 billion in 2008 executive bonuses - a year in which performance in the banking sector was diminished and often fatal for the companies in question
“We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street that are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer. They don’t get it. These people are idiots. You can’t use taxpayer money to pay out $18 billion in bonuses.” an said Sen. McCaskill to the Senate.


