McCain: I’ll Pretend to Reign In CEO Pay
John McCain lies yet again today, saying in Orlando: “We will stop multimillion dollar payouts to CEOs who have broken the public trust.”
But as Doug Holtz-Eakin has previously admitted by “stop” McCain means “do nothing”
Republican presidential candidate John McCain has spoken out about lavish pay packages for corporate chiefs, but his top adviser said on Monday the senator wants to shine a light on the issue and is not offering specific new proposals to rein it in.
Back two or three months ago when McCain was regularly making statements about his policies that were at odds with the actual content of his policies, it was possible to see that habit as a form of carelessness or confusion, but after the recent turn in his campaign’s tactics and their admission that they see lying to the American people as an effective campaign strategy, it’s hard to see this kind of thing as anything put an extension of the general “let’s lie all the time” approach.
24 Responses to “McCain: I’ll Pretend to Reign In CEO Pay”
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September 15th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Rein in, not reign in!
September 15th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Was the Messiah lying when he said he would stop the seas from rising and the earth from warming? Or was that just the sort of idiotic hyperbole you see in political campaigns?
September 15th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
That should be “rein in CEO pay…”But reign is probably more apropos. Just saying…..
September 15th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Is E. O’Neal lying when he changes the subject and pretends to misread Obama’s words? Or is he just afraid to deal with the subject of McCain’s honor?
September 15th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
I think it will rain in…..
The ‘out’ is defining what breaking the public trust means; something like defining torture.
Agree with Emartin re. E. O’Neal.
September 15th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
I read McCain’s statement to refer to CEOs who have broken the public trust, not all CEOs. In this context, it seems to be a reference to the Democratic leadership of the GSEs–you know, the folks who broke the public trust at the same time they were shoveling cash to Obama.
September 15th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
CEOs, except for the ones at the GSEs who have certain statutory responsibilities, don’t have any duties to the public trust. Their duties are to their shareholders, a private trust. McCain’s statements are increasingly vacuous and meaningless. This to me, says that his speechwriters want to get it but they can’t. They’re ideologically incapable of getting it. Just like McCain.
Thomas, the leadership of the GSEs are not Democrats.
September 15th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
‘John McCain lies yet again today, saying in Orlando: “We will stop multimillion dollar payouts to CEOs who have broken the public trust.”’
While “HP paid me $21 million to go away” Carly Fiorina stumps for him.
This irony meter goes to 11.
September 15th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Mary, two past CEOs of Fannie, James Johnson and Franklin Raines, are top advisers and fund raisers for Obama. Both were involved in the fraudulent accounting practices and influence-buying that led the GSEs to insolvency. By the way, Obama has received over $140,000 from GSE PACs.
September 15th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Brad DeLong claims that John McCain was standing next to Carly Fiorina when he promised to rain in CEO pay. Can this be true ?
If it is, can there be any doubt that the article by Jonathan Rauch to which you link below http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/socialstudies.php was the straight reporting result of brilliant death defying penetration of the McCain campaign and not, as it seemed to be, satire.
September 15th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Carly Fiorina was hired away from a top job at AT&T by HP. When her merger with Compaq didn’t work well, she was let go. She had a contract that had to be honored just like a first baseman or point guard. There was nothing abusive, such as when CEOs who control their boards award themselves excessive compensation, golden parachutes, etc.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
I try to be latitudinarian about this stuff, but yes, again, dammit:
REIN in. You Manhattanites and Harvard guys never heard of a horse?
September 15th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Can’t TP at least con some college kid to do an internship proofreading Matt’s posts before they go up?
September 16th, 2008 at 1:31 am
Idiot E. O’Neal has a McCain sponsored answer for everything – McCain’s adviser ran HP into the ground and was let go with a monstrous overpayment? Not a problem. Talk about Obama instead. Never mind that $21 Million to stop fucking the company is more than most of McCain’s marks will see in their lifetime. Never mind that McCain’s plan is “feed the pigs so they are so full they stop undermining America.” And another of McCain’s advisers was instrumental in helping Enronize our financial system? Oops, I guess being a McCain troll means never having to deal in facts.
You’re a fucking moron E. O’Neal. You bring nothing to the table. Even a purely insulting post has more content than yours contain because your contributions are, and intend to be, negative information content.
September 16th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Really, if the American people vote for McCain, they will deserve everything they get.
One forgotten sidelight is that mostly-conservative Andrew Ferguson pointed out in a smart piece in the Weekly Standard back in 2000 (”The McCain Mutiny”) that, when you actually examined them, McCain’s policy “recommendations” were even fuzzier and more vacuous than Bush’s. This man is unbelievably self-indulgent mentally, and I’m honestly beginning to think that he might be a worse president overall than Bush. Certainly he seems to have an itchier and more cretinous trigger finger.
And, yeah, E. O’Neal, most of us are aware that SOME Dems have SOME tendencies toward the toxic economic policies that most Republicans happily wallow in. (See, for instance, John Judis: http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/09/15/looking-backward.aspx .) So can you please stop trying to distracting us from the party that overwhelmingly bears primary blame for the mess — and which now seems willing to use that mess as leverage to turn the US into a classic Crony Capitalist state?
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