New at Reason

November 29, 2006

Political reporter Shira Toeplitz has the full, funny story of how a libertarian businessman in Pennsylvania destroyed a political establishment that had voted to give itself a pay raise.

Comments

Dan T.|11.29.06 @ 12:57PM|#

CEO's giving themselves multi-million dollar raises at the expense of the rank and file is completely different though.

|11.29.06 @ 1:22PM|#

Dan:

People voluntarily give their money to a company.

Taxation isn't voluntary.

See the difference?

|11.29.06 @ 1:22PM|#

Not bad, but this is for publication in December? And the tenses in the article seem to indicate that the election is still forthcoming? Odd.

David Weigel|11.29.06 @ 1:26PM|#

jkp - The issue got to subscribers right before the election. It's a little relevant today, because the Democrats in Pennsylvania have won a final recount and purged the pay-raising GOP from the majority in the state House.

|11.29.06 @ 1:27PM|#

It is different. A better comparison would be a CEO getting a self-promoted raise at the expense of shareholders. (Since taxpayers fund the gov't.)

And quite frankly, it's not hard to buy a few shares in a company whose CEO you despise, just to vote against them.

But keep on rocking in the free world. A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

|11.29.06 @ 1:39PM|#

It's completely different. CEO's don't give themselves pay-raises, the board of directors have to approve CEO pay. You can argue that the board and the CEO usually have close personal ties (a debateable point, and really dependant upon the company in question) however, you can't assert that CEO's determine their own pay.

|11.29.06 @ 3:12PM|#

It would seem to me that the fair way to go about it is to put government pay increases on the ballot and let the folks paying the bill decide whether the folks spending the money deserve the raise.

|11.29.06 @ 3:15PM|#

And, as a purely personal gripe, I've never worked for a company that gives automatic, knee-jerk "cost of living increase" raises, so frankly, I'm tired of hearing government employees whine about their piddling 4% or 5% pay increases.
Of course, it's a free country and I can always go into the public sector when I want job security and a guaranteed retirement.

|11.29.06 @ 4:45PM|#

Damn, I've killed another thread. I should start selling my thread-killing ability. Post a commercial along the lines of:

"Has your thread about laughing at santorum's daughter crying gotten too vicious and gone on too long? For a low, low fee I will pop in, post something totally pointless, and *poof*, everyone will go away and resume fighting over Bush".

Now I just need a venture capitalist big on wallet and short on brains...