AIRLINE EXECS
Bob Novak reports than Sen. John McCain wants to limit the salaries of the airline CEO’s in exchange for a government (i.e., taxpayer) bailout. Novak is incensed:
The broader question is what in the world Congress is doing with any kind of wage controls at the executive level. With most U.S. airlines in desperate condition following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, carriers were trying to prevent a brain drain of valued executives departing for greener pastures. That is a subtlety politicians in Washington are ill equipped to handle.
Now, I agree in general that Congress has no business setting salaries, whether it be for executives or janitors. But it is a laughable idea that the people who keep bankrupting the airlines constitute a brain trust. Having some of them leave would be a “brain drain” of a magnitude not seen since Shemp left the Three Stooges.
