Mike Levin: “there is a growing chasm in our country between the amount of money paid to our corporate executives and the earnings of…”

“there is a growing chasm in our country between the amount of money paid to our corporate executives and the earnings of the rank and file workers. J.P. Morgan once said that executive pay should not exceed 20 times average worker pay. In the U.S., in 1990, average pay for the chief executive officer, CEO, of a large U.S. corporation was 100 times average worker pay; in 2004, the difference was 300 times; today, it is nearly 400 times. The single biggest factor responsible for this massive pay gap is stock options. Stock options are a huge contributor to executive pay. A key factor encouraging companies to pay their executives with stock options is a set of outdated and misguided Federal tax provisions that favor stock options over other types of compensation. That is why I am introducing today a bill to eliminate federal corporate tax breaks that give special tax treatment to corporations that pay their executives with stock options. It's called the Ending Corporate Tax Favors for Stock Options Act.”