GS 1600

Many of us have heard of government pay scales, known as GS. For example, an employees classifies as gs-1 makes less than a gs-2 and so on. I was trying to think of a catchy  title for a government plan to set levels of pay for all employees of certain companies.

The House Financial Services Committee is chaired by Barney Frank. This committee under his leadership is introducing a bill called ”The Pay for Performance Act of 2009″ . This legislation would place government controls on the pay of all employees of firms that have received a capital investment from the government. Even cooler, it would be retroactive.

Treasury Secretary Geithner would, by this bill, be given the power to set the pay for probably millions of people. Furthermore, he would determine  what pay is unreasonable or excessive. The bill passed the committee 38-22 with all Democrats on the committee voting aye along with Republicans Walter Jones of North Carolina and  Ed Royce of  California.

The really, really scary part of this is that if it passes, never for a minute believe that it would begin and end  just with companies receiving infusions of capital. Can you see this type of provision being used to force certain behaviours out of companies or it being  a requirement to even bid on a   government contract .

Residents of Florida may take pride in that one of their own, Rep Alan Grayson, wrote the bill. He  pontificated that no one should get rich on public money. Wonder how all those Congressmen have done  so well financially?  Oh yes, they set  their own salaries. Sweet deal if you can get it. Seems like we are getting that for which we voted, collectively speaking, of course.