Culture and Freedom

Your Income – Under Control

Comment Written by Lew Davies on 1, June 16, 2009 – 9:09 am

GOVERNMENT EXPANDS, FREEDOM SHRINKS

Your freedom is about to shrink some more. Mr. Obama has appointed a “pay czar” to control how much money you make. Well, not you – at least not yet.

Kenneth Weinberg will monitor how much executives who work for companies receiving government money can make. In addition, he will set guidelines for executive compensation at all publicly traded companies. (No word yet on controlling executive compensation at the U.A.W, AFL-CIO, SEIU, AFSCME, or the Teamsters.)

The Obama administration says they have no plans to impose wage and/or price controls for everyone. On the other hand, Mr. Obama said he would not have military tribunals, but he’s changed his mind about that. And rendition of Gitmo inmates, wiretaps of contact between foreign terrorists and American citizens? That was going to end for sure; but god changed his mind. Interrogation photos? Reverse course. Predator drone attacks in Pakistan? He was against that until he was for it. We won’t go into public financing of presidential campaigns, 95% of Americans getting a tax cut, governmental transparency, and other issues.

Of course they “have no plans” to determine how much you can make; but Mr. Obama’s promises seem to be, uh, pliable. Do you think he would say, “Yeah, we do plan to control how much everyone can earn?” You can pretty much depend on Mr. Obama doing the opposite of what he ways he is doing – his track record is pretty clear thus far. Following my college years, Richard Nixon was opposed to wage and price controls – up until the time he implemented them.

Where in the Constitution’s enumerated powers of the federal government is the power for an unvetted, unaccountable “Pay Czar” to control how much a company and an employee agree is just compensation? You already know the answer. The only question is what are you going to do about it?