Government intervention on salaries cannot be a good thing.If these companies think they are better off without the government's meddling, they can continue to run themselves without government money. It seems like I'm the only person here who's actually had to deal with investors so let me explain how this works: the people writing the checks get to attach all the strings they want. They can name executives, put people on your board, set financial metrics... all kinds of stuff.
If you don't like it, you can walk away without their money. Sometimes that's the right thing to do, sometimes it's not. The decision is how much you need the money vs. how much you want to avoid the conditions attached to the money. I don't see why this should be any different just because it's government money.
This year, my company is not giving raises and may also slash our bonus pool (bonuses are a pretty big component of our annual income). We haven't even done anything stupid, it's just that the economy is down and our revenues are down too so money it tight this year. Frankly, we'd all rather take a year without bonuses than lose our jobs. Meanwhile, at companies that have been run so badly that they are completely insolvent, they are handing out billions in bonuses.
Ideally, these guys shouldn't get $1 of government money, they should just go out of business, but the economists with the President's ear are telling him that if that happens, the resulting meltdown will cause much more havoc — i.e. then I would lose my job regardless of how much my company tried to cut back.
Maybe they're right, but whether or not they are, they are going to give money to these ailing financial institution and industrial giants and in that case, I don't want them to just give it out to these failed CEOs. They can get a bonus when their companies are strong enough to run without government help.