David Obey: “None of the funds provided in this Act may be obligated for payment on new contracts on which allowable costs charged to…”

“None of the funds provided in this Act may be obligated for payment on new contracts on which allowable costs charged to the government include payments for individual compensation at a rate in excess of $250,000 per year. This recommittal motion simply reduces that $250,000 salary level to $200,000. In essence what it says is that if any defense contractor wants to pay any individual a salary in excess of that paid to the President of the United States, they cannot do it with taxpayer funds through contracting, they have to do it out of their own corporate profits. When you take a look at the total compensation provided to the CEO's of some of these corporations, you see one being paid $7,287,000, one being paid $5,827,000, another $3,596,000, another $3,538,000, and so on and so forth. I would simply ask one question. Who do these people think they are, that they think that they are entitled to be compensated at a rate higher than the level of the President of the United States? It seems to me that if we are asked to buy downsizing of the military budget, if we are asked to buy downsizing of corporations in general, we ought to also be taking a look at downsizing these outrageously high salaries paid to these corporate executives. All this does is say that you cannot compensate any of these corporations for any salary in excess of the salary paid to the President of the United States.”