{"id":8853,"date":"2006-10-24T12:26:31","date_gmt":"2006-10-24T16:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8853.html"},"modified":"2006-10-24T12:26:31","modified_gmt":"2006-10-24T16:26:31","slug":"bush-astounded-by-the-salaries-given-to-his-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bush-astounded-by-the-salaries-given-to-his-base\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush ‘astounded’ by the salaries given to his base"},"content":{"rendered":"

This<\/a> seems entirely out of character for the president.<\/p>\n

President Bush said yesterday he’s “astounded” by some of the astronomical salaries that corporate CEOs collect and thinks companies should rethink the practice.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think government should control salaries, but I would hope shareholders would take a close look at some of these compensation packages that they pay these corporate executives who are able to make money when the company is not doing well sometimes,” Bush told CNBC’s “money honey” Maria Bartiromo.<\/p>\n

“I get astounded by the size of the pay packages,” said Bush, who is paid $400,000 a year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I suppose it’s mildly reassuring that the president is “astounded” by executive compensation. After all, American wages aren’t keeping up with, well, anything<\/a>, but the median salary and bonus for chief executives in office at least two years soared 14.5%<\/a> in 2004 to over $2.4 million.<\/p>\n

Given this, it’s considerate of the president to express at least mild concern about the development, but it’d be even more encouraging if his entire economic plan for the last six years wasn’t premised on giving these same wealthy CEOs more tax cuts<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Let’s not forget, just a few years ago, Bush spoke in New York at the Alfred E. Smith memorial dinner. Looking out at the diamond-studded $800-a-plate crowd, he noted the wealth on display. “This is an impressive crowd — the haves and the have-mores,” Bush joked. “Some people call you the elites; I call you my base<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

If only he weren’t kidding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This seems entirely out of character for the president. President Bush said yesterday he’s “astounded” by some of the astronomical salaries that corporate CEOs collect and thinks companies should rethink the practice. “I don’t think government should control salaries, but I would hope shareholders would take a close look at some of these compensation packages […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}