Henry Waxman: “as our country faces some very difficult times, we are going to hear a lot about shared sacrifice. Shared sacrifice is…”

“as our country faces some very difficult times, we are going to hear a lot about shared sacrifice. Shared sacrifice is firefighters charging into the World Trade Center to rescue people they had never met and dying in the effort. Shared sacrifice, we are told, is the unfortunate news that over 100,000 workers are going to lose their jobs for the good of their companies. Shared sacrifice, it is clear, means that our sons and daughters, mothers and fathers in the military are going to be sent into battle. But today, in the first economic bill to deal with the September 11 tragedy, we see that there are limits to shared sacrifice. Under this airline bailout bill, senior executives will be able to continue to earn millions of dollars in salary and other compensation. In one case, this bill will permit a senior executive to earn over $34 million and, if he leaves the company, to receive up to $70 million in severance benefits. This is inexcusable, it is obscene, it exploits a painful tragedy, and it makes a mockery of the idea of shared sacrifice. We cannot change this bill; but we can be morally outraged by this inequity, and we can ask the airline CEOs to do what this bill does not. They are asking taxpayers for billions of dollars in help, and then they will be firing thousands of their workers. At this time, they should publicly adopt policies that limit executive compensation to reasonable levels.”