Posted by Donny Ferguson at LP.org. Reposted to IPR by Paulie.
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) is sponsor of the “Pay for Performance Act,” a bill that gives the Treasury Secretary absolute power to confiscate “obscene salaries” from every employee of a private company that accepted bailout funds.
Somewhere Hugo Chavez is kicking himself for not thinking of this.
There are no standards whatsoever for what constitutes an “obscene salary.” It is entirely up to a politically-appointed official to determine — with no guidelines other than his own whims — whose paychecks are grabbed by the government.
So what gives an unelected federal official who can’t even pay his own taxes absolute power to determine what your paycheck should be? In a heated interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto, Grayson actually said the Constitution’s guarantees of “due process” and “equal protection” gives the Executive Branch the unquestionable, unaccountable power to dictate private sector pay.
Watch the video here.
In an ironic twist, at around the 4:45 mark Grayson actually criticizes “people (who) are taking taxpayer money and they’re looting it, putting it in their own pockets and destroying the economy in the process.”
Does that mean he won’t be accepting a salary this year?
You can call Alan Grayson at 202-225-2176 and let him know what you think of his plans to give the Obama administration even more uncontrolled, undefined and unquestioned power over private employers.
Just got another one…..
Your Monday Message from the Libertarian Party:
Dear friend,
I was in the middle of writing a great Message to you this afternoon about how first-time membership in the Libertarian Party has increased every month for the last three months and we’ve seen a 151 percent increase in new volunteers. People are excited about the Libertarian Party!
Then I got a phone call from 202-225-2176.
It was Congressman Alan Grayson’s office.
They’re not sharing the love.
You may have gotten an e-mail from me last Friday about the Florida Democrat and his disturbing “Pay for Performance” bill.
If you didn’t, or you’ve forgotten, Grayson’s bill would give the Treasury Secretary complete, absolute and total power to forcibly confiscate so-called “unreasonable compensation” from ANY employee at a company the federal government owns shares of.
Here’s where it gets really scary. The bill does not define what “unreasonable” is. That total and absolute power is given to the unelected Treasury Secretary, who is free to write his own rules.
And judging from his years of unfiled tax returns, he’s not the kind of guy who should be writing his own rules.
That power to confiscate doesn’t just apply to incompetent managers. It even applies to janitors, employees who actually performed their jobs well, or theoretically employees who make good money and oppose President Obama.
It’s also retroactive, meaning they can go back in time and steal money already paid out. Even the Soviet Union didn’t allow that!
Just how enamored is Congressman Grayson with unquestioned government power?
He even went so far as to go on national television and claim the Constitution gives the President’s administration the right to forcibly confiscate money from people the administration feels didn’t “earn” it!
Socialists have been calling for “maximum wage” laws restricting private salaries for years – and using the exact same arguments touted by Grayson. If his bill passes, advocates of a virtual “salary cap” on private individuals will have a toe in the door.
Well, apparently Congressman Grayson isn’t happy with the phone calls he’s been getting from concerned Libertarians.
His office called me around lunch to complain from 202-225-2176.
Yep, they’re giving an unelected bureaucrat – one who’s already proven he can’t follow the law – absolute power to confiscate the earnings of private citizens if he thinks it’s “excessive,” and they have no shame admitting that.
They just didn’t like the fact the swarms of Libertarians calling their office were more focused on his blatant power grab and not the which specific bailout packages were included.
Not that it matters. Americans are angry over the fact the Treasury Secretary is being given absolute control to write his own rules allowing him to steal private citizen’s paychecks, and all it takes is one quiet amendment to apply the undefined powers to many more companies.
They know it’s not only the first step towards “maximum wage” laws, but that giving the Executive Branch absolute power to confiscate the property of people the president’s administration feels didn’t “earn” — with no rules or standards in the legislation — is a frightening step away from the free country we love.
Giving the president absolute, unquestioned, unchecked power to intrude on private citizens was a bad idea under the Bush administration, and it’s still a bad idea under the Obama administration.
And stealing the earnings of private citizens because the president’s appointee feels like they didn’t “earn” it is the first step towards the kind of economy touted by people who look at the rubble of the Soviet Union and think, “Great idea! Let’s do that here!.”
You can call Congressman Grayson yourself at 202-225-2176 to let him know what you think about his plan to give the Obama administration absolute, self-defined power to steal money they just feel like people don’t deserve.
Yep. 202-225-2176.
Tell them the Libertarian Party sent you.
With optimism,
Donny Ferguson
Director of Communications
Libertarian National Committee
[email protected]
Email from LP list….
April 3, 2009
From the desk of Robert Kraus:
Dear friend,
Will you help your Libertarian Party defend our free market system from a frightening power grab?
You see, if Congress gets its way, an unelected political appointee will soon have the power to solely decide what constitutes “excessive compensation” and forcibly confiscate it.
I’m talking about the so-called “Pay for Performance Act.”
Sponsored by Florida Democrat Rep. Alan Grayson, it gives the Treasury Secretary unprecedented powers to confiscate the pay of ANY employee at ANY company that received bailout funds if he thinks they didn’t really earn it – even if the compensation was required by a legal contract.
If it passes, the federal government would have the power to forcibly dictate the salaries of millions of private employees.
It’s another step towards the “maximum wage” law many socialists have been demanding for years.
And it doesn’t define what unearned pay actually is. It gives Tim Geithner, a man who decided to exempt himself from taxes, sole power to write whatever rules he pleases.
It also applies to ANY employee, not just a manager or someone who lost money. If you do ANY work for ANY company that accepted funds – even if you were a profitable employee who did everything right – the government would have the power to steal your paycheck from you.
And it’s retroactive, allowing the Treasury Secretary to use force against people for doing something that was perfectly legal at the time and required by contract.
The Soviet Union didn’t even allow its agents to do that to its citizens!
Now, no one should be getting rich off the taxpayer, but if allowing unelected bureaucrats unchecked authority to steal paychecks with no standard or procedure isn’t scary, I don’t know what is.
Giving the Executive Branch unchecked, uncontrolled and unconstitutional powers was a bad idea under the Bush administration, and it’s still a bad idea under Obama.
Can you help the Libertarian Party fight back with your best gift of $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, $1000, $2500 or whatever you think you can afford right now?
Just click here
or go to https://www.lp.org/contribute
to do your part to win back our freedoms.
Any gift in any amount would be greatly appreciated and put to maximum use. As you may have read on Monday, we are currently recruiting candidates for 2009 and 2010 to fight back against this nationalization of our economy — at all levels.
Your support allows us to build a national party that can assist federal, state and local candidates with voter databases, campaign literature, media assistance and the kind of campaign training that allows every Libertarian candidate from president to school board to run winning campaigns.
And this kind of federal power grab – allowing the Treasury Secretary to invent his own rules and steal paychecks from even profitable and low-level employees for any reason whatsoever – is exactly what the Libertarian Party was founded to fight.
Again, no one’s arguing that incompetent managers should be entitled to taxpayer cash.
But this bill would hand an unelected bureaucrat undefined and uncontrolled powers to override legal contracts and decide for himself what private citizens should earn.
It’s another frightening step towards a totally nationalized economy. The Libertarian Party is the only party with the principles and moral authority to fight back.
Will you help us build a winning party and take back our freedoms?
Please click here
to rush me your best gift of $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, $1000, $2500 or whatever you think you can afford right now. You may also go to https://www.lp.org/contribute
.
This so-called “Pay for Performance Act” is nothing more than another step towards a virtual “national salary cap.”
EVERYONE is at risk.
Please fight back today.
Yours in liberty,
Robert Kraus
Acting Executive Director, Libertarian National Committee
P.S. An out-of-control Florida Democrat has introduced a bill that would let the Treasury Secretary decide for himself what private citizens should be earning – and forcibly steal anything above that from ANY employee at a company that accepted bailout funds – even profitable and competent ones.
It’s the kind of “maximum wage” law many socialists have been demanding for years. You can be sure it’s just a start to even broader powers putting everyone, EVEN YOU, at risk of having your paycheck confiscated because it’s not “fair.”
Please help the Libertarian Party fight back. This is exactly the kind of power grab we were created to fight – and exactly why we MUST build a Libertarian Party that wins elections.
They shouldn’t be receiving taxpayer funds.
One of the reasons is that once they start receiving taxpayer funds, the government screws with the companies they have taken over to force them to operate in a “politically correct” manner.
Then, when they fail even more abysmally, they get even more taxpayer funds.
The game is played again and again until you and I are broke.
How is it wrong to set conditions on recipients of taxpayer funds?
Yeah, it seems the idiots who just think it’s cool we have a black President (shamefully, a huge segment of the apolitical population) won’t realize they’re getting screwed until the government is setting their wages and sending them a draft notice for domestic “volunteer” service.
Donald Raymond Lake says:
“He ain’t George W but he ain’t much of a change!”
Actually he is much more dangerous.
First, Bush mouthed free market, libertarian ideas. Barack Obama dismisses those in favor of “pragmatism”– by which he means only leftist solutions. Ideas which do not fit into that category are dismissed as “partisan” or the “divisive politics of the past.”
But the most dangerous thing about him is his delivery package—it is appealing. When Bush and his goons trampled over the constitution they were so uncouth people noticed. The general public does not notice Obama’s constitutional vandalism.
~Becky
So does this bill apply to our congress as well? You only get paid at the end of the year if the economy improves? Can we make sure the merit bill applies to them also?
NO, the Libertarian Party can never be compared to the “Blame America First” republicans. No Libertarian ever blamed the 9/11 attacks on our Constitutional liberties, as republicans have been doing so persistently.
And no libertarian would have supported last years “bridge to nowhere”. No libertarian could have supported last years bank bailout. No libertarian would have supported the (3) bailouts of AIG, which republicans DID support. And no libertarian would support the upcoming auto industry bailout.
Libertarians SUPPORT the right to vote, which is continuously attacked by republicans (and democrats). Libertarians do not support irresponsible wars to build empire, as republicans (and democrats) do. Libertarians do not support homo-erotic torture, as has been the republicans only inspiration of this century (and still supported by democrats).
No, Eric, there is a huge difference between clear thinking, morally upstanding Libertarians and the stench of the republican party. And democrats are merely republicans on steroids.
PEACE
What do you know: Leftwing Libertarian George Phillies comes here to defend the Democrat Party.
Wake up you all! Even the Libertarian Party HQ put out a press release (covered here at IPR), the other day slamming Obama for increasing the budget “three times over Bush.”
Time to scrap the “not a dime’s worth of difference,” nonsense.
There’s a huge difference. The Republican Party of 2009 is essentially the Libertarian Party. And the Democrat Party of 2009, is little different from the National Socialists in Germany of the 1930s and ’40s.
Headline is stupid misrepresentation of stupid bill.
The proposal, which seems unlikely to get off the ground, only refers to companies in which the Federal government is a major titleholder, in some cases up to 80%.
Now “endangers the right of contract, the right that protects union carpenters and union plumbers and the United Auto Workers”, that would have been a good message.
Gates isn’t the problem. As far as SecDefs go, he’s actually very apolitical and more of an administrative operations guy.
The rest, though, is a problem, undoubtedly.
He ain’t George W but he ain’t much of a change!
Keeping Gates at Pentagon, bailing out billionaires, keeping troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. “Change you can count on”? Hmmmm, chump change maybe…………