Posted on 01/24/2007 1:59:36 PM PST by Graybeard58
Bloated CEO salaries – subsidized by taxpayers – undermine American values. Congress needs to reform the tax code.
The new Democratic-led Congress has already made great strides on its ambitious legislative agenda. From hiking the minimum wage to cutting interest rates on student loans, Democrats have won impressive bipartisan support for their legislative goals.
Not included on the agenda, however, is any proposal designed to address what may be the most fundamental problem facing America right now: an alarmingly high degree of inequality.
Currently the top 10 percent of income earners in the US own 70 percent of the wealth, and the wealthiest 5 percent own more than the bottom 95 percent, according to a Federal Reserve Study. The ratio of average CEO pay to worker pay in the US shot up from a mere 301-to-1 in 2003 to 431-to-1 in 2004. The average CEO now earns $11.8 million per year, versus the paltry $27,460 for the average worker. As America tries to grapple with soaring healthcare costs and lack of universal coverage, UnitedHealth Group CEO William McGuire received an obscene $124.8 million in compensation in 2005. He's just one of many grossly overcompensated kingpins of the US economy.
Adding insult to injury, taxpayers actually subsidize these bloated CEO salaries. The federal government gives tax breaks to corporations for those salaries, to the tune of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars.
We used to call this by another name: the Gilded Age.
Income disparity hurts democracy
The level of inequality and unfairness has risen to such eye-popping levels that it is attracting attention from unlikely sources. Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Board chair, has called rising inequality "a concern in the American economy." Mr. Bernanke's esteemed predecessor, Alan Greenspan, has said that disparate income distribution is "not helpful for
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
From each, according to his abilities,
to each, according to his needs.
This is inherently misleading. As I understand it, the numbers are based on the S&P 500. So we're talking about the compensation of 500 people out of 300M. IOW, a significantly smaller group than professional athletes, whose compensation levels are similar and which nobody seems to get upset about.
I do believe these guys are overpaid, but that's the concern of those paying them.
"Oddly, however, in this country that was founded at least in part on the principle of equality for all"
The article must be referring to a country other than the US. Perhaps the defunct USSR.
For the record I am against corporate welfare, the same that I am against individual citizend welfare, however the best way to deal with this problem would be to stop considering "corporations as people for tax purposes", and instead to eliminate Corporate taxes infavor of replealing the irs, and then impleminting a FLAT TAX on income.
Actually, this writer has it wrong.
It's not 'equality for all'.
It's 'equal OPPORTUNITY for all'.
Big difference.
Funny, various government agencies--local, county, state, and federal--own an awful lot of land and property in my area.
Stock options here we come!
A cap on wealth would whack George Soros, Teresa Kerry, the whole Kennedy clan, etc. etc.
Can't have that!
But are we rich? BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
And if a corporation's shareholders want to spend $X million to hire the best management talent, I should be concerned because ...?
Actually, I thought we capped that at a million dollars back in the 90s. That lead to paying them with stock options, which incentivised them to drive up stock prices, which lead to the dot.com and stock market crash.
What they call "tax breaks" are in this case writing off the cost of labor as a business expense. The corporate executives pay taxes on every dime.
If they took the money away, and paid it to every employee, the corporate tax payment would not change.
There goes another formerly reasoned and credible publication whose "evolved" editorial staff has been through the re-education camps that used to be our great universities.
You would think you were reading "Communist Workers United" instead of CSM.
Sad, and discouraging.
Hey I'm all for this. I can't wait to get my share of Pelosi's vinyards and vacation resort properties and Jane Harman's millions. And as soon as Julia Roberts signs up to do another $20 Million movie I'm so sure I will be getting my fair share. Oh, I do hope I can find something to wear when I get my first check from Barry Zito's new contract. And whatever will I do with all the money I can expect to receive from Michael Moore's next docudrama?
From each according to their means, To each according to their needs.
Why does anyone but the companies shareholders care what the CEO makes??
Adding insult to injury, taxpayers actually subsidize these bloated CEO salaries. The federal government gives tax breaks to corporations for those salaries, to the tune of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars.
My BS meter just got pegged by this. IIRC, there is already a $1 limit on deductibility of CEOs, so his examples of salaries in the tens of millions of dollars wouldn't be taxed much more. This author just wants to reduce that to 25 times the minimum pay in the corporation. So if there is one person in the company working full time at minimum wage, then the maximum pay which a company could pay and still count it as a business expense would be $267,800. Anything above that the government will get to tax twice: once at the corporate rate and then once again at the CEO's tax rate. Why not tax it again at the company's bank's tax rate and at the CEO's bank's tax rate?
Limiting the government to taxing income only once was the reason why wages are tax deductible. It was only a flurry of governmental greed which lowered that limit before. Now this chump wants to limit it some more. Just another example of the greedy hand of government.
According to libthink, if you work and pay taxes, you are rich and must give more of your money to the poor, to be distributed by the libs of course.
There used to be a perk called Tuition Reimbursement where Electronic Technicians could upgrade to Engineer by turning their Associates Degrees into Bachelor Degrees. Then Beacon Hill got greedy. They figured by taxing it as income and taking away the business expense deduction that they could squeeze a few more pennies out of us. Instead, Tuition Reimbursement went bye-bye along with the potential tax revenues from higher salaried engineers. It was stupid.
If Social Security is privatize, at least for the working poor, then the money they save in private accounts is theirs and the wealth gap has shrunk.
A RDSA - Rainy Day Savings Account that lumps all SS, medicare, unemployment comp, workers comp, health insurance, etc into one big savings account will close the wealth gap even faster.
Most people who cry about the wealth gap don't want to close it. Then they would have nothing to cry about.
Of course, that is true of other special interest groups on both the left and right. The pro-life movement repeatedly seems to defeat itself. One wonders if they really want to win.
The anti-immigrant movement repeatedly portrays their issue in an unfavorable light. One wonders if they really want to win.
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