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The maple syrup smell is the sweet, sweet odor of burning credit cards. We've just never smelled it before because we've never had a need to GET RID OF THEM!

Let’s keep and increase arts funding in the stimulus package!

Here are ten reasons why the arts should matter to you.

1. Increased funding in the arts invests in an industry that supports jobs, generates government revenue, is the cornerstone of tourism and economic development, and drives a creativity-based economy.

2. Nonprofit arts organizations and their audiences generate $166.2 billion in economic activity every year.

3. Nonprofit arts organizations return nearly $30 billion in government revenue every year.

4. Nonprofit arts organizations and their audiences support 5.7 million jobs.

5. Investment in non-profit arts generates a spectacular 7:1 return on investment. That is, $1 invested in the arts generated $7 in the community. $50 million to the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) would generate $3.5 billion in economic activity.

6. The arts are shovel-ready – each dollar of arts funding goes to work immediately creating jobs, attracting investment, generating tax revenue, and stimulating local economies through tourism and consumer purchases.

7. Artists constitute a sizeable class of workers -- only slightly smaller than the total number of active-duty and reserve personnel in the U.S. military.

8. The performing arts draw more attendance than sports. 70% of Americans attend at least one performing arts event per year versus 53% that attend one sports event.

9. Children who receive an arts education on a regular basis are more likely to be recognized for academic achievement and less likely to engage in delinquent behavior.

10. A strong arts and culture sector and a creative workforce attract and keep businesses in the community - it is one of the top ten attributes corporations look for in a new business site.

The arts are not “pork spending”. Even if you are not an arts patron, the money spent on non-profit arts funding benefits you.

http://theperformingartsalliance.org/campaign/AmericanRecoveryandReinvestmentBill

The limit should be between 250k and 400k. It is ridiculous that these executives are making millions of dollars and not only laying off employees, but taking big fat bonuses. They should be ashamed of themselves.
In WA alone Boeing, Microsoft and some other huge companies are laying off thousands of people. This disgusts me when the Boeing CEO made 19 million. That is a disgrace! People wonder why our economy is failing. My husband makes about 100k a year and we can't even afford a home. If we stopped paying ridiculous tax dollars to federal, medicare and social security taxes, and stop giving our tax money to programs that promote women to have 4 kids before the age of 21 maybe people could actually afford to spend money and actually have money to spend on homes and new cars without living paycheck to paycheck. I am tired of the earned income credit, WIC, and welfare programs like foodstamps where these people don't have to spend money on things that everyday people have to buy ex. food, daycare expenses, rent, and medical bills. It pisses me off that even a gallon of milk is almost 4.00. In a time where people are losing there jobs, and we are still thinking of bailing out people that get back anywhere from 5k to 10k for having 3 kids pisses me off. Here we paid over 28k in taxes and another 6k to a 401k where we lost 51% this year alone of what was in the account total (over 15k lost) and we have money to promote people to sit on there ass and have kids they can't afford?
I'm sorry I don't qualify for ANY assistance because my husband supposedly makes to much money. It is a joke!!!

$500,000 cap should be for ANY employee.

For $500,000 you'd be hard pressed to find ANY job I wouldn't do!

I strongly support a ceiling on CEO salaries. I'd also like a salary cap for Brian Lehrer and other program hosts at WNYC.

The usual argument for giving the CEO more money than anyone could ever spend is that he did great things for the company.

But this does not address the point at issue. The point is not how great the accomplishment, but what great accomplishments are worth.

Here’s the answer: nothing anybody ever did is worth that much money.

Do you think all the CEOs would quit if all they could get was a measly million a year?
After all, they’re just salarymen. If they need that kind of money, let them go out and start their own businesses so they can keep it all. (Hint: it’s not so easy.)

Here’s a better incentive: succeed or be fired.

From my book "Ornamentally Incorrect"

Puritans, British and American, have a well known bias against the whole aesthetics thing. Artists and performers are thought to be at best frivolous, at worst Satanic Mapplethorps. Unless of course, one starts a so-called Christian rock band. I believe this to be the heart and soul of right-of-center opposition to putting arts money into the stimulus package. OK, in the real world this will not fly unless some of the money goes to fund free or low-cost Christian rock shows. I can live with this, in order to keep good art from drying up in this recession.

Meta-comment on this.

$50M/$800B is 0.00625% of the new bill. By having issues like this get major public discussion while the major outlays receive passing attention is a failure of, well, the media. The media is getting played by the opponents to this bill.

Media: let's risk being bored to death to learn something about the major outlays instead of getting sidetracked on incendiary spare change.

As an artists manager for 35 years, I have seen incredible arts-related stimuli throughout the United States. Consider that many concert/show/museum attendees also patronize area restaurants, local transportation systems, gift shops, boutiques, hotels/motels, gas stations, etc., etc.

Without mentioning his name, I have the honor of an open invitation to the home one of the most influential living musicians. He tells many people to "come by any time" and engages us in an on going dialogue of mystical riddles. At 79, he has more humor, sensuality and reverence for LIFE than most people have his age.

Jim from Brooklyn has a point. Losing all those billions, while keeping up with the robber barons is very difficult work. We should all pass the hat for these CEO/Executives.

BTW, your tax expert says that she does not understand why someone would not want to pay into the system. Really? Many, probably most of these domestic workers are illegal and thus afraid of paying taxes. Also from the employer point of view, paying taxes will drive up their cost of child care which is not inconsequential, not just the actual taxes paid but the employees will need to raise their prices to compensate for the hit that they will have to take from being in the system.

Why stop at CEOS. We have school superintendents making more than the Secretary of State, college presidents making more than the country's President and college football coaches making more than our County's combined Cabinet. All take public money.

Limiting CEO pay will just be a distraction. We should do clawbacks. How? Executive compensation in the US is a racket, and can be prosecuted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Practices Act (RICO, US Code, Title 18, secs. 1962-1968). Section 1964(c) allows any individual harmed by a racketeering operation to file a civil suit and reclaim 3X the damages.

After the economic meltdown, NY State is stringently reviewing state returns for errors to generate revenue. It was many peoples' Christmas Card from the state last year - an assessment notice in the mail for unpaid taxes. The department of revenue version of a parking ticket.

Limiting CEO pay will just be a distraction. We should do clawbacks. How? Executive compensation in the US is a racket, and can be prosecuted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Practices Act (RICO, US Code, Title 18, secs. 1962-1968). Section 1964(c) allows any individual harmed by a racketeering operation to file a civil suit and reclaim 3X the damages.

I have a lot of sympathy for these wall street people because banking is literally the hardest job in the world. The rest of us just can't even grasp how hard these people have to work-- so much harder than us teachers, for instance. And teachers only have to worry about educating kids, while bankers have to worry about money all day.

That's why I understand the impossibility of banking for only half a million dollars a year. Even though I make under a tenth of that, I can imagine how hard it must be for them to receive less than a million for their hard work.

Rather than trashing these bankers we should be grateful that they've decided to stick with us during such rough times at their banks. What would we do without them?

The problem is not that CEOs have been paid too much - the problem is that the current pay structure in our culture incentivises behavior that is not in the long-term interests of the company, the shareholders, or the economy at large. We will never have a stable, healthy economy until executive compensation is tied directly to the long-term health and growth of the companies in which they work.

Why should CEOs get any bonuses? If I suck at my job by creating a global financial crisis, I probably shouldn't be let off the hook if my company decides to take money from taxpayers.

And let's not forget that many of these same executives not only get exorbitant salaries, they get all sorts of other perks, such as free transportation, having their country club dues paid, much of their dailyl living expenses (meals!) paid for. Not to pick on him alone, but I distinctly remember this info coming out about Jack Welsh of GE.

In effect, those who could best afford to pay their own expenses are relieved from doing so.

What is wrong with this picture????

I know this will sound somewhat socialist, but I think all government pay should be linked to a multiple of the minimum wage. Company compensation should be linked to the same multiple of their lowest wage earner.

Please do NOT bailout our state. It needs to go bankrupt. I underpaid my taxes and I am thinking about sending the state an IOU.

CEO's including those who already who received money should not get any bonuses and a cap of $250k until the money is paid back. considering they made millions themselves and us why shouldn't they foot some of the bill

I disagree with your guest about high pay as a necessary incentive for talented CEOs. It is those people that are obsessed with money and are greedy--that put America in this situation in the first place...What about reformers who may have more of a drive to run a huge corporation than merely money? What if they were driven to turn a company around and change exploitation of workers etc...

do CEO's do anything any way?
i guess they are highly paid cheerleaders for the corporation

more on post 6 (alicia) on 18 times pay.

Look HERE: http://sos-newdeal.blogspot.com/2009/01/mr-president-welcome-now-work-and-stop.html

we need to ENFORCE this with Taxes ON CORPORATIONS THAT EXCEED THIS..

(and I SAID THIS 2 MONTHS AGO ON MY BLOG)... If anyone (Executive producer perhaps??) cared to read it...

ALSO: We need A NEW "MMT" Minimum Millionaires Tax..." where ANYONE (either a COMPANY/corporation ) making OVER 1 million dollars GROSS will pay at least one percent per million dollars in INCOME as A MINIMUM income tax...

No exemptions either...

See here...I suggested THIS in AUGUST of last year.. http://sos-newdeal.blogspot.com/2009/01/mr-president-welcome-now-work-and-stop.html

mark brown (again NOT taken as a radio caller)..I really MUST be blacklisted here!

the President gets: $400,000 PLUS a very nice house with staff; PLUS A fleet of armored limos; PLUS a very very nice 747 PLUS a fleet of Helicopters( Plus Fabulous security.

OK I will take all that to run citibank into the ground.

Ref: Should financial co. exex receive less than Pres Obama?
When in 1930 Babe Ruth was asked why he received more money ($80,000) a year than Pres. Herbert Hoover ($75,000), the Babe Ruth replied: "Well, I had a better year."

if the public now owns the banks, the bank officers should accept public sector wages--or find another line of work.

what if executive bonuses were paid out over time rather than all at once and linked to corporate performance over time (ie, if the company goes belly up the day after the boss leaves the boss gets less money).

When we speak of 'how much finance executives should be paid', its irrelevant. How much should a mother be paid? Employees are paid what the market will bear. The market will no longer bear these salaries so they will plummet with or without govt mandate.

.. and let's not forget that CEO compensation has been debated for decades now, and the gap between the top executives and the lowest-paid salaried workers in their firms have only widened -- it seems exponentially.

It's been a "scandal" for years, and only got worse. And now look where we are. I have believed that this problem tears at the social contract and the fabric of society and can no longer be sustained.

It is representative of much of what is wrong with our society. We are no longer a meritocracy. More than ever, the children of the well-to-do are several rungs above their peers. That means we aren't getting the best and the brightest, we are getting the most advantaged. That is a formula for national decline.

The president gets a few perks in addition to his salary. Free housing, a billion dollar private jet, limo service (should he pay taxes on these?)

Maybe we would be better off if we did not have so many smart S's running these banks.

They should take thier Brand name degree and do something productive..

Banks do not produce anything.. they are supposed to help produce things...

I keep hearing that CEOs will just go elsewhere. Is this truly a concern? Who is hiring? Would it really be that easy for them to line up work in Mumbai or Dubai, especially after what they've done to our economy?

I would like to know why they still have their jobs? Any other employee who had such a bad performance would have been fired a long time ago.

The myth that "we are the stockholders" is a farce! If one looks at the annual report of these companies, many have Board members who own large percentages of the stock - plus funds that only rarely interfere with Board decisions. Exec compensation is usually done by the Board, which consists of OTHER CEOs who all 'scratch each others backs' ... it's almost impossible to change this stuff with shareholder votes.

Easy. A % of the lowest salary and perks based on performance

Brian, can you just give a shout out to President Obama about how absolutely thrilled and proud we are that we now have a president that can actually say 'my bad'???

What about bonuses, stock options and other non-salary compensation? I tend to think that they will find other ways to be compensated to get around a $500,000 saslary cap.

Another hollow promise!

Pls ask your guest to discuss what the tax dollars on these exhorbitant salaries do for the City and the State of New York.

First the notion that high compensations allow companies to hire the brightest for their position does not hold the water. If they were brightest we probably would not have this recession.

Second, the notion that they should have high compensation because they are making billion dollars decisions is wrong. My experience in contacts with those people told me that they are not loosing any sleep making these decisions especially considering the fact that even in case they make wrong decisions they still have theirgoldn parashutes.

Third, this is not capitalism anymore when people are compensated independently of the work they are done.

Sybil #28-- Tying the cap to the President's salary is just ridiculous. Seriously. Does he pay for anything out of his own pocket? Clothes, transportation, rent, food--all of that comes from the budget for the White House. Tying his salary to anything would be a meaningless red herring.

Every minute we spend discussing this is one minute less time we spend discussing the dire state of the economy. That is why politicians love to talk about executive comp.

With the average American tax-payer income being less than $40,000, I think these top executive should be in the area of $150,000 yearly. If you were to take that difference of $5 million (which I heard one of these guys made in 08) and cycle it back into the system to help with these bad Real-Estate loans, it would touch many American lives in a positive way. If I were making $150,000 a year, I'd be MORE than content. I'd probably end up donating a lot of it being that I'm currently living on $23,000 a year with a 1-child family. How much does any 1 person actually need to exist comfortably?! I guess that's another issue though.

Why don't we pay anybody that works in a bank at minimum wages? I mean, there's been huge layoffs, some people would stay because the job market is so horrendous. Isn't that supply and demand?

# 6 (alicia) I said that TWo months ago HERE..
http://sos-newdeal.blogspot.com/2008/12/auto-rescue-think-outside-of-box.html
(at bottom of post...)

Max of X % of LOWEST paid employee (OR CONTRACTOR) in the company...

THE REAL problem is that EVERY single CORPORATION in America Must adopt this policy.

In the past 40 years, executive pay has gone haywire. This MUST be addressed by MANDATORY
executive compensation reform by The SHAREHOLDERS...

My question is $500,000 enough to pay for an image consultant and pollster? Obviously these guys are tone deaf, just yesterday there was an article in the NY Times that quoted someone on the street as saying she thinks that she still deserves a bonus. The economy is tanking, yet they don't appreciate the message that such outrageous compensation sends, their sense of entitlement and greed defies description. If executives cannot get by on a measerly $1/2 million, then don't take the government and taxpayers money. I know that there is a danger of losing top talent as BOA CEO Thain argues, then don't let the door hit you on the way out. It is these talented geniuses who got us into this mess in the first place

What joke! Nonbinding! This is outrageous!

No CEO should make more than the President of the USA. He is the leader of the free world.

They should receive no stock options or bonuses or golden parachutes period.

The CEOs from companies who received the last bailout should be asked to return anything above the President's salary. Enough is enough!

A salary cap? I absolutely LOVE this idea. No one individual needs to make multiple millions of dollars a year when there are people working two or three jobs just to keep a roof over their heads.

I don't think any CEO should make more than ten times the salary of the lowest-paid employee in his company. I wish we could apply that to all companies, not just the ones participating in the bailout.

Let's get real. Executive comp makes people angry but it is a DROP in the bucket and a big DISTRACTION from what is really important. Move on, Obama.

Why not pay them the same amount as the people's executive, the President of the US? What's that up to, 400,000? I'm sure they'll find a way to give themselves more, but it seems like a good baseline from which to work.

It has long seemed to me that we need some kind of national 'maximum wage' as a balance to the minimum wage. It should be calculated as a multiple of the lowest wage paid in the company. If your night staff janitor makes 10/hr, then perhaps your CEO should be limited to total compensation of 2 mill/yr. Think about it - can any one person's labor be worth more than 20 times another's work? If your company is doing fabulously, and you're worth 5 mill/yr, then surely your mail room clerk is worth 50K/yr.

Average Wage:$54,920 for non-Hispanic white households

FROM: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/012528.html

$75 starting. $110,000 MAX! 90 day review. Yearly employee review. Max raise: 5%.

If they're twice as smart, get twice the pay.

I think 500k is enough of a salary for a leader of a company who has basically failed his employees.

In a real open market these companies would fail.

This is absurd that we should even care. They made millions and obviously did not perform their jobs well!

The executive compensation debate of today is analagous to the paradox presnted by CEO defenses during the corporate scandals (Enron, Worldcom, etc) of a few years ago.

Back then, it went like this: They had to pay the CEO that much money because he (typically, it was a "he") was indispensable to the firm. But when the scandals hit and legal liability was hanging over their heads, they claimed not to know what was going on.

The point is they can't have it both ways: they can't be indidpensible when it comes to their compensation, but be absolved of responsibility when it comes to problems.

Similarly, they can't expect to be paid anything when their firms are driven into the ground (taking the rest of the nation's economy with them.)

An even better alternative (and thanks for framing the debate in terms that make sense to me) would be to fire these "idiots" (again, Sen. McCaskill's word). As their boss, I see no compelling reason whatsoever to keep them on.

What about capping executive compensation to a multiple of the compensation of the lowest paid employee?

What drives me crazy is that we've adopted the language of the perpetrators by referring to the parts of the TARP as tranches. What's wrong with portion? "The last portion of the TARP..."

Or just fire them and let them work for the mafia or something illegal where they'll actually get rubbed out for failing. That might be an incentive!

Some banks were forced by Paulsen to take the TARP money, particularly JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo. So it doesn't make sense to force them to meet the 500K limit.

The CEOs should make the same as those Americans paying their salaries. In this case, the median annual income for men in the US. According to the Census Bureau (by way of Wikipedia) that was $45,113 in 2007.

IF their company makes a profit, they can be eligible for a bonus, based on the amount of money they took in for their companies on TOP of the money we've given them. Why should they make any more than those paying their salaries?

I believe that Ben & Jerry's Ice creram had in place a policy that the top executives could NOT be paid more than 14 X's whatever the lowest paid worker was being paid. I think this is a terrific formula for executive payscales. This would encourage top executives to be creative soo as to be able to obtain additional remuneration.
JR

They need more than an incentive to come to work -- they need an incentive not to fail!

Personally, I think if you lose millions for your company (and the nation), your pay should reflect that.
You should go back to the bottom. 30 grand a year. If that means they have to move into a small apartment and their kids have to give up dreams of Harvard, so be it. That's what's happened to the rest of us.

30 grand is the average pay of the american worker overall, I hear. Why should they balk at that?

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill answered this a couple days ago: not more than $400,000, equal to the yearly salary for the President of the United States. Surely, these CEOs are not more important than the President?

In the case of the automakers, the number should be phrased in reference to average salary of someone working on the assembly line. It is more meaningful to say that a CEO makes ten or twenty times as much as the average employee than it is to say that they make $500,000 or even $1,000,000.

The stimulus is doomed to failure. It's little more than lefty pet projects masquerading as boluses for the economy. And of course, the new spending will serve as the baseline to for future budgets.
Coupled with the staggering deficits and the doubling of the monetary base in the past year, it's as if DC wants the country to implode.
The solution for regular folks is to buy gold, silver and oil.
The bungling of the transition will seem like the good ol' days in a year and a half.

Let's find the CEO's who have not broken their banks and recruit them to fix the ones that are broken. Those CEO's are worth every penny, so no need to cap pay.

Of course taxpayers have a right to cap salaries of their employees. Let's separate the identity of the company from the identity of the CEO. Even if the companies are TBTF, the CEOs are not. They were the employees of stockholders and now employees of the taxpayers.

The government determining salaries is a bad idea. The CEO's and those who generated the so-called toxic securities should be fired. Those who were producers for their firms should take a hit, but still get bonuses.

Capitalism is based on incentive and competition, not government.

It should be a maximum of 18x (in the best of times) the lowest paid salaried employee within the company.

As I understand it the limitation is not just on CEO pay but on that of all executives. This will be a problem as even mid level executives at Wall St firm hope to make more than this amount & firms receiving bailout cash will therefore be unable to retain the top people that they need to deal with the current problems.

The compensation restrictions (Maximum wage), including stock option restrictions are fair when one considers that these executives have run their companies to the grounds and have fleeced investors and shareholders and undermined the global financial markets.
For those who complain: Please stop whining as in the private sector normally MOST people would be on the unemployment line for any minor mistakes or errors that cost the company money. Why shouldn't the same standards be maintained for corporate executives?
True, these individuals know a lot about finance and creating exotic 'products', but most competent people can learn this and do a better job. we are not talking about Einstein here. All we are talking about is lending and investing money in business ventured.

Brian, the CEO's of corporate america must be in stitches, laughing at the thought that they would even accept a cap of a $500.000 bonus, with the life style they have been accustomed to for decades. It will never happen, good thought though.

I am not sure how Americans are supposed to be pressuring their elected representatives to pass the stimulus bill when it is so hard to find out what is actually in it. I find I am reading in the media a lot about the poitics of passing the bill but very little about what is actually in it. The most detailed articles I have read offer about five bullet points of one or two sentences each. I certainly have not read anything approaching a comprehensive analysis. Is there a website that offers a detailed summmary of all of the provisions in the proposed bill?

"If you do what you always did, you get what you always got." Bush gave us tax cuts and they did nothing to help the economy...in fact, we continued on the downward spiral to where we are today. Maybe helping people through other means--earned income tax credit, providing Pell grants so our children might be able to go to college, adding to Medicaid so people would have one less worry, extending unemployment, and requiring only 25% of the steel used in new recovery projects be purchased from the US thereby helping our steel industry--would be the incentive we need to spend the tax cuts that are included in the package rather than save them. Katie