Marching merrily along

Last month I was debating a liberal friend of mine - well he says he's a moderate, but in this case he sounded pretty liberal. At any rate, I was lamenting the loss of liberty that goes along with taking government money and looking to the government for solutions to our problems. I also expressed fear that once the government set the precedent of regulating executive pay, they would eventually try to expand that power - in an incremental, slippery slope kind of way. He poo-pooed that notion, insisting that the feds needed - and even had an obligation to regulate the pay of those greedy CEO's because they took tax payer money.

You can read the post that started the debate here

His response:

"there are should also be certain ramifications to corporate welfare. I agree that executives should be rewarded, companies should be allowed to spend the stockholders' money how they chose. BUT, the moment that company sticks it's hand out for OUR money...there should be restrictions."

But here we are less than a month later and the Obama administration is already looking to expand its power. The Treasury Department wants the authority to take over non-bank financial businesses if they decide the company could fail and its could have an impact on the overall economy. And not to be outdone, Democrats in Congress are pushing to pass legislation to expand its oversight over CEO pay - possibly to companies that have not taken bailout money.

I know - I know. The government needs this power because of blah blah blah. There always seems to exist a blah blah blah that justifies the expansion of government.

If this type of government power grab does not concern you, there is nothing that I can say that will change your mind. But just keep in mind - eventually they are going to come after something of yours that you hold dear. By then it may be too late.