New house bill would let Geithner set ALL salaries in bailed-out companies

The wise are cautious and avoid danger;
fools plunge ahead with great confidence.

The Bible, Proverbs 14:16

The assaults on the pillars of the old Republic keep coming. The inglorious death of the 90% AIG tax didn't deter the architects of our New National Order; they simply regrouped and attacked from another direction.

House Democrats have now introduced a bill that goes far beyond the scope of the AIG bill. Now, the federal government is not only claiming jurisdiction over executive compensation at companies that receive bailout funds, they're claiming jurisdiction over the compensation of all employees at these companies. Retroactively, of course.

Here's how Byron York describes it in the Washington Examiner today:

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 25 or 50 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."

When the Soviets tried to orchestrate the minutiae of their economy, we mocked them for it, and rightly so. Central control of a nation's economy has never worked anywhere. N.E.V.E.R.

And yet, our rulers plunge forward with great confidence. Maybe it will be different this time.

Click.

Lady Liberty is on the rack, and the ratchet has just been been turned another notch. She cries out in pain, but few speak up for her. Her tormentors yawn disinterestedly. They have so much to do; why must they waste their time drawing out her death?

Okay, maybe the preceding was a little melodramatic, but I hope you get my point. It seems abundantly clear to me that our country and its institutions -- everything that made America so attractive to the immigrants of past generations -- will be unrecognizable once the Obama administration and Congress have fulfilled their dreams for us. They are destroying, not building.