Bush Takes Aim At Huge CEO Pay

President Touts Good Economic News While Acknowledging Anger Over Executive Salaries

(CBS/AP)  President Bush took aim Wednesday at lavish salaries and bonuses for corporate executives, standing on Wall Street to issue a sharp warning for corporate boards to "step up to their responsibilities" and tie compensation packages to performance.

Mr. Bush's "State of the Economy" speech, delivered from the financial center of the world, was aimed at bringing his economic message out of the shadows of the Iraq war. On his second day in a row focused on the economy, the government reported faster-than-expected growth of 3.5 percent in the final quarter of last year.

The president acknowledged people's continuing nervousness about their financial picture, despite a string of similar reports that provide some reason for optimism. He said he realized that stories about the enormous salaries and other perks for CEOs, for instance, create anger and uncertainty that affect the country's investors.

The president does not endorse any government role in reducing those packages. Instead, Mr. Bush highlighted new federal rules that the administration thinks are a better path toward wise compensation decisions by companies.

"Government should not decide the compensation for America's corporate executives," he said. "But the salaries and bonuses of CEOs should be based on their success at improving their companies and bringing value to their shareholders."

In effect starting last month, the rules give investors access to clearer and more detailed information from public companies on their top executives' pay packages and perks. Their impact will become apparent as corporations begin issuing 2006 annual reports.

"America's corporate boardrooms must step up to their responsibilities," Mr. Bush said. "You need to pay attention to the executive compensation packages that you approve. You need to show the world that America's businesses are a model of transparency and good corporate governance."

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has said he will push legislation to require shareholder approval of executive compensation plans. And a separate bill before the Senate to raise the minimum wage would fund accompanying tax breaks to ease the burden on small businesses by capping executives' tax-deferred pay packages at $1 million a year.

Still, even Mr. Bush's words on pay were met with complete silence from the business crowd he addressed.

Huge salaries and other perks for CEO have drawn investor ire and made splashy headlines. Anger over executive compensation unrelated to performance, even as companies stumble, lay off employees or renege on billions of dollars in pension obligations for workers' retirement, has spread from shareholders to union activists and buttoned-down mutual fund trustees. The chasm between executives' salaries and the pay of rank-and-file employees continues to widen.

Home Depot chief executive Bob Nardelli was earning an average of $25.7 million a year — excluding stock options — before he was forced out in a furor over his hefty pay. He left with a severance package worth about $210 million.

In 2001, General Electric Co. paid chief executive Jack Welch $16.25 million. Welch was replaced that year with Jeffrey Immelt, who earned $3.4 million in total annual compensation in 2005.

[inventagod]

Bu$h bristles over capitalistic American business practices. Maybe things would be more acceptable if the USA was a fascist dictatorship?

[gunownerdan]

If we are going to start paying our leaders based on their performance, many would be in debt!

[middleman8]

Tis nothing for the "Decider" to take care of.

[skyhawk761]

This is typical of Bush and his administration, **** on the fire after the house has already burnt down. This is just a smoke screen to try and get peoples attention of his total fluck up in Iraq.

[dallison7]

CBS/AP) A report by the Congressional Research Service undermines Vice President *** Cheney's denial of a continuing relationship with Halliburton Co., the energy company he once led, Sen. Frank Lautenberg said Thursday.
Halliburton has contracts worth more than $1.7 billion for its work in Iraq, and it could make hundreds of millions more from a no-bid contract it was awarded by the Army Corps of Engineers, The Washington Post has reported.

[grumpas]

Is there no depth of ignorance this man will sink to???????

[gunownerdan]

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961

[dallison7]

According to The Post, while Cheney was defense secretary the Pentagon chose Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root to study the cost effectiveness of outsourcing some military operations to private contractors. Based on the results of the study, the Pentagon hired Brown & Root to implement an outsourcing plan. Cheney became Halliburton CEO in 1995.

[rharrin1]

I think everybody should listen to bush as he was such a big success in private business.

[getcentered]

Bush is running out of smoke grenades!

Does he really think Americans are falling for his "I'm mad at CEO's for making so much money" bit.

Bush could give a ***.
Who is he to say what CEO's should get paid anyways? He can't tell corporations how to pay their officers.

Watch out CEO's! Bush is coming after you!

[sharncedar]

"In his remarks, Mr. Bush was expected to call for changes in enforcement of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act,"

That's the real gist of it, folks. The coporate crooks are trying anything they can to stay out of prison. The reason they don't want to sign their financial reports (a key provision in Sarbannes-Oxley) is because they know that their books are cooked. Note how the CFO of Citicorp just "changed jobs" in a mysterious manner within that company, that's precisly timed with the new accounting year and she would have had to sign the financial statements for the first time in accordance with Sarbannes-Oxley. But the dirty crook ditched the CFO role, she must know that Citicorp is commiting major felonies.

And here comes dirty George Bush carrying the water for corporate felons once again. The man is so dirty, we should call him mud boy.

I

[tejasdemo]

This *** is right up there with Bush's plan to land people on Mars !

[clemenhagen1]

"For Halloween buy her a trumpet and for Christmans give her a drum." I hear Dylan in the lyrics and see Bush leading a one-man parade in triumph over his brilliant economic success. Let's see: inherited four years of surplus - immediately plummeted to record deficits (440 billion the single year record), record trade deficits, skyrocketing foreclosure rates, tax cuts for the very same CEO's he now criticizes, out-sourcing seen in the loss of one in five manufacturing jobs, new jobs created at WalMart and their ilk at the "never-to-be-raised" minimum wage, the middle class under perpetual threat by burgeoning health care costs and out-of-control college tuition. Sounds like time to beat your drums and toot your trumpet to me Captain Codpiece.

[randalds]

Very ironic coming for the country's most incompetent CEO, George W. Bush. Which also makes him the most overpaid one himself.

[bluestardad]

Now Bush what about your buddies at ENRON? Worldcom?
What do you think of them?

[delta5243]

sooooooo what's going to happen to good ol Dickey C. ???????

[agnim]

"This s-hit is right up there with Bush's plan to land people on Mars !

Posted by tejasdemo at 12:33 PM : Jan 31, 2007"

LOL

[maiingan]

So what? I just want to know when the politicians are going to do something to end long-term unemployment among college graduates who have no crime or drug records.

[agnim]

What's driving these unconscionable salaries are UNMITIGATED GREED AND SELFISHNESS on the part of average CEO!

It they would only share the companies' accumulated wealth with the WORKERS who help to create the wealth, things wouldn't be so bad. But this greed and selfishness on the part of the typical CEO is despicable.

[antoniof123]

This is the main reason why those CEO's just keep getting more and more because of idiots like Bush.

[luvny-2009]

What a line of $hit our of Bush's mouth that is. He's ONE OF THEM! Not to mention what we'll have to pay him for the rest of his slime life.

[j-whitman]

ROLLING ON THE FLOOR LAUGHING -- THAT ENRON SOB CAN'T STOP LYING

[mjv2944]

At least Jessie James used a gun when he robbed, these CEO's use a pin. What a bunch of BS that they pay these thieves that kind of money and bonuses with out tieing it to profitability. No matter how lousy a job they do, they still make the big bucks and bonuses. It borders on being criminal.

[j-whitman]

And Bush wants "Line Item Veto" & "Fast Track" --- BAD IDEA

[j-whitman]

I'm watching these idiots on Wall street welcoming Bush,,,,, SHAME, SHAME - That show's America's Yellow Backbone,, The cowardly SOB ran from active duty & was found guilty of Savings & Loan Fraud 2 times.

[walt1944-2009]

Working in corporate environments, I know full well how corporate executives are over-payed, over-perked, but definitely not over-worked! That's what they have the clerical staff for. One Executive VP I know took a limo to and from work every day while his car was in the shop, for 2 weeks at $1,000 a day. Company paid for naturally! This is just one example and you know it goes on a lot everywhere you go. Companies are making big profits, but it stays at the top and gets spent at the top. As for Bush, he should talk! If he were paid based on performance, he would be owing the government instead of having us tax payers supporting him for the rest of his life. As if he needs it!!

[cathaleen]

Didn't he at one time refer to these people as his base?

[blondmadison]

They pay CEO's top dog salaries and the CEO's shmooze Wall Street for insider tips in trading and off they go into millionaire and billionaire status while the average employee loses retirement, pensions and investment accounts investing their time, energy and funds into a "company"? Or, into the owners, board members and upper managements personal bank accounts?

And this is called fair market "business" and "land of opportunity"? Gag me. How about ROBBERY with a suit and tie instead of a mask and gun?

[j-whitman]

Bush's new appointee to run our Nations Security comes from the defense contracting industry & made millions on top of millions from our tax payers.

[fleshmonger6]

When he is standing in front of those who have all taken advantage of our country and it's people at some lavish dinner, he tells them that this is a gathering of the finest people in our country, "the haves and the have-more's" Then when it suits him, he stands in front of the people upon whose back's all that lavish wealth is derived and then tells us that there needs to be some kind of responsibility by the same people he lauds over in their presence... I only wish more people were thinking enough not to fall for this kind of baseless propaganda.

[dixiebobh]

What to do with Bush? There is nothing short of impeachment that will amount to a thing. Is there sufficient hard evidence to accomplish impeachment? I have no idea.

This I do know. The American people are fed up -many dangerously so. A calmer, more intellegent tact will be more helpful in the long run, than cussing and raising print hell.

[noloyalisti]

All Bush and his conservative cronies want is to spread privatization to this country and to the world. His policies over the last 6 years is to concentrate as much wealth as possible in the hands of the CEOs of the companies that are supporting his criminal party. His lies don't fool anyone.

[exusmcsgt]

President Bush took aim Wednesday at lavish salaries and bonuses for corporate executives, standing on Wall Street to issue a sharp warning for corporate boards to "step up to their responsibilities" and tie compensation packages to performance.

This man has the audacity to publicly ask for a tie between compensation and performance? How do you spell HYPOCRITE?

[oxmyx-2009]

ANOTHER FAKE ECONOMY- like the Reagan years. Wall street thieves gleefully making it hand over fist
while the middle class is watching decent jobs dissappear, losing its health coverage and pensions and falling into poverty more and more every year. We're all just beasts of burden to be ridden by the rich as empowered by their perennial protectors- the republicans.

[fascistusa]

Our Government is FASCIST.

NOTHING will change unless we REVOLT. Nothing.

Our News is Propoganda.

All the ideas and all the ******** in the World will NOT CHANGE A THING.

REVOLUTION IS INEVITABLE.

[clemenhagen1]

At least Jessie James used a gun when he robbed, these CEO's use a pin. Posted by mjv2944

MJV: "It's through this world you'll ramble, you'll see lots of funny men, some will rob you with a six-gun & some with a fountain pen...It's through this world you'll ramble and through this world you'll roam, you won't ever see an outlaw drive a family from it's home."

Woody Guthrie - "The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd"

Great song - great post - sad how the song remains the same throughout all these decades.

[inventagod]

OK, Mr. Bu$h - Let's start at the top. You're FIRED!

[exusmcsgt]

clemenhagen1-

I'll add Don Henley's line from "Gimme What You Got".

"A man with a briefcase can steal more money than any man with a gun".....

[mahasana]

LIAR, CON MAN, SNAKEOIL SALESMAN, HYPOCRITE, THIEF, MURDERER. How can anyone approve his handling of anything? Nobody knows what's what anyway. He tells the country that the economy is rising but leaves out the part "only for the mega-wealthy and the rest get nothing"

And this so-called "Surge." It is just ground troop placement for Iran. Could be a nuclear war with this demon in charge, who the hell knows. And, while I'm at it, he is about as "born-again" as the fleas on my dog's ***.

[bobgee_1999]

fascistusa: Inevitable in this country? Too many fat people are too content with thinking themselves rebels and being told how free they are, thrilling to quarrels between Rosie & Trump and glimpses of Paris's snatch while their civil rights disappear. Never gonna happen.

[jsilver2th]

El Presidentes idea of populism: Shaking hands on Wall Street where the little people congregate.

[fascistusa]

bobgee_1999 -

I love knowing so much about History and Human nature.

I know there were plenty of people like you who stood around George Washington and said, "Never Gonna Happen."

REVOLUTIONS HAPPEN.

IT"S ALREADY STARTED.

[jimfinster]

Remember the video where Bush calls a crowd of super rich folks his "base" ? And his tax cuts targeted for the top 10% ?

How can we take this seriously ?

[j-whitman]

Badax,,, GDP growth at the cost of our manufacturing & American contractors in Iran helping thier economy, Bushiness & dual purpose semi-conductors sold to Communist China, Not to mention hidden btdgets & no accountablity ??? Bush witholds information we need for any educated answer to that Badax..... Let's wait & see.

[jimfinster]

badaxmofo:

What I hate most are idiots that keep blindly following this President.

[generey]

ROFLMMFAO - AGAIN!

Americans - Asleep at the wheel.

[pakaal]

badaxmofo wrote: "Which part do you hate more Bush haters: 49 qtrs of GDP growth, 4.6% unempl, or historical low and stable interest rates?"

Not that I hate Bush so much as feel much pity for him, but let's see....

I'd have to say I hate the largest federal deficit ever, smallest job growth cycle ever (from 2001), hundreds of millions wasted on oversight-less projects in Iraq, growing wage disparity, witholding promised funds from public schools and Republicans blocking federal minimum wage increase.

These are a few of my least-favorite things, badaxmofo, thanks for asking.

[marcodele]

I'm amazed at the hypcrisy of this president. He certainly wasn't against outrageous CEO compensation during his Harken Oil years.

1990: Although Harken has no international expertise, it gets the attention of the Bahrain National Oil Company, which unexpectedly appears on the scene and bypasses big oil's Amoco and Chevron to sign a production agreement with the little Texas concern. The contract grants Harken exclusive rights to what seems to be a promising offshore area squeezed between two productive tracts owned by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Wall Street Journal speculates Bahrain was trying to cozy up to Daddy Bush, who was plotting an assault on Iraq after Saddam Hussein seized Kuwait.

Bass Enterprises Production Company finances the Bahrain drilling with $25 million, and Harvard Management raises its investment. A couple of members of the Fort Worth Bass family have places on Team 100, an elite business group contributing to the Republican National Committee.

In June, Harken drills two dry holes in Bahrain. The future looks bleak. Dubya dumps two-thirds of his Harken holdings (212,140 shares), for $848,560. He uses some of this money to buy into the Texas Rangers baseball club. This is a lot of stock to dump on the market all at once, and brokers say it was purchased by an unnamed institutional investor. That August, Harken posts a loss of $23 million.

[pakaal]

Oh, and between 1950 and now, US unemployment rate has gone up and down between a little over 2% and a little over 9%, with most numbers in the 4-5% range. It went up when Bush was elected, it went down to about 4% in 2000 and by 2003 it was up to 6%. It's gone down in the past couple years, it'll go up again. Historically, the presidents to hope for in terms of actual employee payroll increases have been Democrats. Sorry to break the news, but Bush is certainly not doing any good in terms of the US economy.

[rsoxfan1123]

Oh look, Bush really is for the middle class. this proves it! all of those tax cuts for the extremely wealthy were just a smoke screen for his real agenda, his care for the middle class. I get it now.