Back in September the failed Maine Democratic U.S. Senate challenger, Rep. Tom Allen, displayed righteous outrage that the "administration and its allies in Congress" were "negligent in their responsibility to ensure that greed and market speculation not undermine America's economic stability."
Tom Allen proceeded to vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill. According to the cited story in The Coastal Journal, the bill would end "excessive compensation to corporate CEOs under whose watch the industry began to fail in the first place." Maine Owl said at the time,
The bill fails to do the things necessary to keep the economy from falling off the metaphorical cliff. Sure, it would open a taxpayer floodgate into Wall Street for a former Goldman Sachs CEO to manage as he pleases. But look, they won't pass an unemployment/health/jobs bill, they won't help individuals with bankruptcy and foreclosure (which would have a MAJOR positive effect on the crisis), they won't even discuss surcharges on millionaires or any sort of revenues to help pay. The "oversight" in the bill was a joke.That last statement is true with a vengeance.
Executive Pay Limits May Prove Toothless
Loophole in Bailout Provision Leaves Enforcement in Doubt
By Amit R. Paley - Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 15, 2008; Page A01
Congress wanted to guarantee that the $700 billion financial bailout would limit the eye-popping pay of Wall Street executives, so lawmakers included a mechanism for reviewing executive compensation and penalizing firms that break the rules.Tom Allen, a lot of us told you so.
But at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision...the small change looks more like a giant loophole, according to lawmakers and legal experts.
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