Health insurers protecting their own paychecks?

I'm startled that any portion of a CEO salary can be subsidized by tax payer dollars, let alone having a debate about whether or not to reduce it by $500k.

Mike Madden, Salon.com, October 16, 2009

WASHINGTON -- You can change the regulations, order them to stop dropping patients from the rolls, even mess with health insurance companies' profit margins. Just don't try to cut the pay of their top executives.

That, at least, seems to be the point of some recent objections reportedly raised by Karen Ignagni, the CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, to the healthcare reform bill the Senate Finance Committee approved this week. Time's Michael Scherer reports on a phone call between Ignagni, Nancy-Ann DeParle, the White House's top healthcare official, and a senior Senate Finance staffer a few weeks ago. DeParle tells Scherer the health insurance lobbying group was particularly nonplussed by provisions in the legislation that would lower the amount of executive pay that insurance firms can deduct from their taxable corporate income. A Senate source gave Salon the same account of the call.

The insurers had been on board, shakily, with healthcare reform plans all year, but broke with the White House and Democrats in Congress earlier this week by issuing a widely mocked study saying the proposals would actually raise costs. (The accounting firm that wrote the study, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, later put out a statement distancing itself from its own work.)

Might an industry that makes money by refusing to pay for its customers' healthcare have been driven to the split by a more personal form of greed? The provision on pay was added to the legislation by Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., during the Finance panel's debate in the last few weeks. It would lower, from $1 million to $500,000, the amount of executive salary that can be written off as a business expense. The effect would be either to raise taxes on insurance companies, by as much as $60 million a year over the next decade, or -- worse! -- force them to cut pay for their executives to avoid the tax hike. A Lincoln aide said "she didn't think it was right" to require millions of Americans to buy health insurance, providing the insurance companies with new revenue, and also continue to give tax breaks for high salaries at the firms.

Ignagni tells Scherer she never raised the issue of executive compensation, in any form, with DeParle. "I'm very sure about having no discussions about executive compensation," she says. "I'm not saying that they are lying. I'm saying that maybe they are mistaken in confusing me with some other person in our industry. But I very clear about what I raised and what I didn't." That doesn't mean, of course, that she's happy about the potential pay cut for her association's members.

White House and Senate staffers will work through the weekend trying to merge the Finance Committee's bill with a more liberal one passed earlier in the year by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Now that the insurers have decided to oppose reform, though, don't expect the merged bill to go particularly easy on them -- or on their executives' paychecks.

― Mike Madden

At the Last Minute, a Raft of Rules

Bush White House Approves Regulations on Environmental, Security Matters

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 30, 2008; A04

In a burst of activity meant to leave a lasting stamp on the federal government, the Bush White House in the past month has approved 61 new regulations on environmental, security, social and commercial matters that by its own estimate will have an economic impact exceeding $1.9 billion annually.

Some of the rules benefit key industries that have long had the administration's ear, such as oil and gas companies, banks and farms. Others impose counterterrorism security requirements on importers and private aircraft owners.

The rules cover obscure as well as high-profile social and economic issues: spelling out what kinds of records must be kept by sexually explicit performers and publications, exempting hobbyists' rocket motors from federal explosives controls, expanding the collection of DNA samples from federal prisoners.

In most cases, the new regulations are meant to spell out precisely how federal employees and private citizens must comply with laws passed by Congress. But the language in those laws often had ambiguities -- reflecting lawmakers' uncertainties or disagreements -- that gave Bush's appointees broad discretion to follow their policy preferences. Similar "midnight regulations" were approved by previous presidents.

In the environmental area, the latest rules indicate that the Bush administration wants to lend a final assist to industries that feel burdened by looming pollution controls or wilderness-protection laws. A rule approved by the White House three days after the presidential election, for example, would ease constraints on environmentally damaging oil shale development throughout the West, despite objections from Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) and a majority of the state's congressional delegation.

On Nov. 17, Ritter called the decision "not just premature, it's hasty and I would even argue reckless." The Interior Departmentpublished it in the Federal Register Nov. 21, and it will take legal effect in 60 days from that date, or shortly after Congress reconvenes with a larger Democratic majority.

Top officials are still finishing work on other industry-friendly measures, including a regulation inhibiting the ability of Congress to halt logging, mining, and oil and gas extraction on public lands. Another rule would allow federal agencies to proceed with development projects without undergoing independent scientific review under the Endangered Species Act.

The Bush administration's impetus for hurrying to approve and publish so many of these regulations in the Federal Register is that those deemed to have a major economic impact -- defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as more than $100 million a year -- take legal effect after 60 days.

That means Nov. 21 was an important political deadline to ensure they become effective before President-elect Barack Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration. Less significant regulations, including many still in final stages of preparation, can take effect in 30 days or less.

Once the new rules take the form of law, Democrats can undo them only by three complicated means: through a new regulatory rulemaking that would probably take years; through congressional amendments to underlying laws; or through special, fast-track resolutions of disapproval approved by the House and Senate within a few months after the start of the new congressional session on Jan. 6.

Such a quick congressional rebuke has occurred only once before, in 2001, when a Republican-controlled Congress with President Bush's backing blocked a workplace safety regulation completed in the Clinton administration's final months. But recently, spokesmen for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said Democrats were prepared to use that regulatory reversal power in consultation with Obama.

The leadership "will review what oversight tools are at our disposal regarding last-minute attempts to inflict severe damage to the law in the waning moments of the Bush administration," said Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly.

"We will do whatever it takes," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the Environment and Public Works Committee chairman. "We're all over this. We've been waiting to pass on the information" to Obama's transition team.

A spokeswoman for the OMB, who declined to be named, said "the activity of the last three weeks is expected" because the White House had ordered that draft regulations be sent to the OMB for final review by Nov. 1. She said those regulations still being completed reflect "long-standing administration priorities."

Not every draft regulation got approved. On Nov. 19, the OMB ordered the Energy Department to kill new regulations that would have forced the federal government to buy more-energy-efficient lights, appliances, and heating and cooling systems. Daniel J. Weiss, climate strategy director at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, called that retreat from a 2005 requirement "unbelievable."

The White House also ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw a new regulation mandating that truck manufacturers install equipment to monitor vehicle pollution. It blocked the Department of Veterans Affairs from issuing new promised "user-friendly" guidance on burial and survivors benefits.

Those regulations that did get the nod came from 16 agencies and departments and will have a broad impact.

A controversial new Health and Human Services rule approved in late October, for example, cuts an estimated $2 billion in state Medicaid reimbursements for outpatient services. State officials had complained that it would jeopardize dental care for children, certain lab tests and speech and occupational therapy.

"The withdrawal of this rule should be one of the first orders of business for the Obama administration," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.).

A controversial Justice Department rule approved Nov. 19 orders accelerated judicial review for death sentences. Legal groups had argued that speeding up executions makes errors more likely.

Another Justice rule approved Nov. 19 spells out the personal documentation that sexually explicit performers and related publishers must make available for government inspection. The underlying 2005 law, intended to keep minors out of such performances, has been challenged in the courts as a privacy violation by sexual swingers and the magazines in which they use explicit photos to solicit partners.

Nine days after the election, the White House approved a rule allowing trucking companies to force drivers to stay on the road for 11 hours without a rest. The American Trucking Association supported the rule, but lawmakers, unions and advocacy groups have called the extended hours dangerous.

Three days after the election, the White House also approved a regulation requiring that lenders provide home buyers with a simplified summary of their financial and legal obligations. The changes, under development at the Department of Housing and Urban Development since 2002, gained impetus after lending fraud contributed to the U.S. economic meltdown.

Industry opposed the reforms, however, and as a result, HUD dropped a proposal that settlement agents read a "closing script" as they complete a transaction.

Also, loan officers won the flexibility to change some fees based on new circumstances, which critics said would bring higher costs to borrowers. Compliance was postponed until 2010.

Business groups also successfully pushed back against provisions in counterterrorism regulations proposed by the Department of Homeland Security that could have required importers and sea carriers to detail shipment information to U.S. authorities before loading.

The "10-plus-2" rule -- so named for the extra pieces of information required -- was the most significant import industry security measure since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, trade officials said. But the National Association of Manufacturers and others said the rule would delay shipments by two to five days and cost as much as $20 billion a year.

As a result, the OMB agreed to give importers flexibility in complying and delay some of its implementation. It was published Nov. 24 as an interim rule, rather than a final one as originally proposed.

A second counterterrorism regulation, requiring that pilots of private planes transmit crew and passenger lists before departing or entering the United States, was approved by the OMB over that industry's opposition. But a separate regulation requiring rigorous security screening for larger private planes was delayed at industry's request.

Staff writers Spenser S. Hsu, Ceci Connolly and Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.

Bush and Cheney's Last Shot

Note from Greetings: This is amazing, last-minute, secret undermining of most Americans' rights to a clean environment, healthy and safe working environments, and the health of ourselves and our children. And yes, they wholeheartedly endorsed John McCain this weekend, albeit in secret, just as they did with the passing of laws to restrict the protection of the health and welfare of all Amercians. If you like losing your job, a dirtier environment, and a President who won't investigate previous digressions such as these, nor remedy them.. then you should vote for McCain. If you want more transparency in government, a cleaner environment, and protection of your jobs, your health and your childrens' well-being, the choice is simple. Barack Obama.

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, October 31, 2008; 12:12 PM

Did we really expect President Bush and Vice President Cheney to go quietly?

R. Jeffrey Smith writes: "The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.

"The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

"Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining.

"Once such rules take effect, they typically can be undone only through a laborious new regulatory proceeding, including lengthy periods of public comment, drafting and mandated reanalysis. . . .

"The burst of activity has made this a busy period for lobbyists who fear that industry views will hold less sway after the elections. The doors at the New Executive Office Building have been whirling with corporate officials and advisers pleading for relief or, in many cases, for hastened decision making."

Emma Schwartz reports for ABC News: "Every administration tries to pass last minute rules in hopes of leaving a lasting mark. But experts say the Bush administration is expected to approve a greater number more quickly than previous administrations -- something they said could lead to bad and costly policy.

"'The administration wants to leave a legacy,' said Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, which has been critical of these proposals. 'But across the board it means less protection for the public.' . . .

"It wasn't supposed to be this way. In May, Josh Bolten, then-head of the Office of Management and Budget, which oversees regulatory approval, issued a memo barring new proposals after June. It also required that all new regulations be completed by Nov. 1.

"That hasn't been the case. Many proposed regulations have yet to be finalized and new ones have already come out since the June deadline.

"A spokesperson for OMB said in an email response that the Bolten memo 'wasn't intended to wholesale shut down work on important regulatory matters after November 1st, but to emphasize due diligence.'

"She added: 'Ensuring the integrity of the process is important to the Administration.'"

Among the examples cited by Smith is a proposed rule put forward by the National Marine Fisheries Service that would lift a requirement that environmental impact statements be prepared for certain fisheries-management decisions and would give review authority to regional councils dominated by commercial and recreational fishing interests.

Watchdogs are up in arms. The Pew Environment Group says the rule "threatens to completely undermine application of the law that protects ocean ecosystems." OMB Watch reports: "In addition to the hundreds of thousands of public comments opposing the proposed rule, 80 members of Congress have also expressed their opposition, including a letter joined by 72 members of the House of Representatives. The letter states that the proposed rule fails to meet congressional intent made clear during the reauthorization of the [fisheries act]. Hundreds of scientists and environmental organizations have also signed on to oppose the rule."

Another example is something Siobhan Hughes wrote about in the Wall Street Journal on Monday: "The Bush administration is moving to adopt rules that would loosen pollution controls on power plants, by judging the plants on their hourly rate of emissions rather than their total annual output, people familiar with the matter said. . . .

"As long as a power plant's hourly emissions stay at or below the plant's historical maximum, the plant would be treated as if it were running more cleanly, even if its total annual emissions increased as plant operators stepped up operations."

From the Archives

I've been calling attention to yet more examples of the Bush administration's midnight rule-making for the past several months. For instance, back in May, Juliet Eilperin wrote in The Washington Post: "The Bush administration is on the verge of implementing new air quality rules that will make it easier to build power plants near national parks and wilderness areas."

Carol D. Leonnig wrote in The Washington Post in July: "Political appointees at the Department of Labor are moving with unusual speed to push through in the final months of the Bush administration a rule making it tougher to regulate workers' on-the-job exposure to chemicals and toxins."

Alicia Mundy wrote in the Wall Street Journal two weeks ago: "Bush administration officials, in their last weeks in office, are pushing to rewrite a wide array of federal rules with changes or additions that could block product-safety lawsuits by consumers and states."

And of course there's the push for a last-minute regulatory overhaul that would effectively gut the Endangered Species Act.

Juliet Eilperin wrote in The Washington Post in August that the new rules would "allow federal agencies to decide whether protected species would be imperiled by agency projects, eliminating the independent scientific reviews that have been required for more than three decades."

Dina Cappiello wrote for the Associated Press just 10 days ago that Interior Department officials were rushing so hard to ease the endangered species rules before Bush leaves office that they were "attempting to review 200,000 comments from the public in just 32 hours."

And on Monday, Cappiello reported that -- surprise! -- the administration had concluded "that changes it wants to make to endangered species rules before President Bush leaves office will have no significant environmental consequences."

And yet another one to add to the list. In today's Post, Juliet Eilperin writes: "The federal Bureau of Land Management is reviving plans to sell oil and gas leases in pristine wilderness areas in eastern Utah that have long been protected from development, according to a notice posted this week on the agency's Web site.

"The proposed sale, which includes famous areas in the Nine Mile Canyon region, would take place Dec. 19, a month before President Bush leaves office."

Tip of the Iceberg?

Keep in mind that rule-making is by definition a public process. So what else is going on, beneath the surface? I raised a slew of questions in that vein for NiemanWatchdog.org back in June. Among them:

* Are major contracts being let out that have long-term ramifications? And are any of those related to outsourcing?

* Are appointees in federal agencies trying to cover their tracks? Are documents being properly retained?

* Are Bush political appointees working on last-minute reorganizations within the federal government?

* Are Bush loyalists burrowing into the civil service? Will political appointees engage in a last-minute flurry of hiring and promoting Bush loyalists into key civil service jobs? Will political appointees try to make the jump into the civil service?

Fact Check: Palin's Alaska spreads its wealth

Note from Greetings: So.. again by their own definition (McCain and Palin), are McCain and Palin the real socialists? McCain with his interest in corporate welfare for the wealthy in their tax breaks and the bailing out of Wall Street with government funds? And Palin, who did, indeed, spread the wealth around when she was in charge in Alaska.

By RITA BEAMISH – AP

Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin summon antidemocratic images of a communist state to attack Democrat Barack Obama's tax plan and his comment about spreading the wealth around. But in her home state, Palin embraces Alaska's own version of doing just that.

Palin and McCain seized on a comment Obama made to Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher, who asked about his tax plans.

Obama wants to raise taxes on families earning $250,000 to pay for cutting taxes for the 95 percent of workers and their families making less than $200,000. "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody," he told Wurzelbacher.

McCain said that sounds "a lot like socialism" to many Americans. Palin has derided the Illinois senator as "Barack the Wealth Spreader."

But in Alaska, Palin is the envy of governors nationwide for the annual checks the state doles out to nearly every resident, representing their share of the revenues from the state's oil riches. She boosted those checks this year by raising taxes on oil.

McCain campaign spokesman Taylor Griffin said Thursday that spreading wealth through Obama's tax plan and doing it through Alaska's oil-profit distribution are not comparable because Alaska requires the state's resource wealth to be shared with residents, but it's not taxing personal income.

"It's how the revenue is shared between the oil companies and the state."

A look at Palin's and McCain's comments and the record in Alaska:

THE SPIN:

"Barack Obama calls it spreading the wealth. Joe Biden calls higher taxes patriotic," Palin told a crowd in Roswell, N.M., and elsewhere. "But Joe the Plumber and Ed the Dairyman, I believe they think it sounds more like socialism.

"Friends, now is no time to experiment with socialism."

In Ohio, she asked, "Are there any Joe the Plumbers in the house?" To cheers, she said, "It doesn't sound like you're supporting Barack the Wealth Spreader."

McCain told a radio audience that Obama's plan "would convert the IRS into a giant welfare agency, redistributing massive amounts of wealth at the direction of politicians in Washington."

"Raising taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut; it's just another government giveaway."

THE FACTS:

In Alaska, residents pay no income tax or state sales tax. They receive a yearly dividend check from a $30 billion state investment account built largely from royalties on its oil. When home fuel and gas costs soared last year, Palin raised taxes on big oil and used some of the money to boost residents' checks by $1,200. Thus every eligible man, woman and child got a record $3,269 this fall.

She also suspended the 8-cent tax on gas.

"We can afford to share resource wealth with Alaskans and to temporarily suspend the state fuel tax," she said at the time.

Much as Obama explains his tax hike on the rich as a way to help people who are struggling, Palin's statement talked about the energy costs burdening Alaskans:

"While the unique fiscal circumstances the state finds itself in at the end of this fiscal year warrant a special one-time payment to share some of the state's wealth, the payment comes at a time when Alaskans are facing rising energy prices. High prices for oil are a double-edged sword for Alaskans. While public coffers fill, prices for heating fuel and gasoline have skyrocketed over the last six months and are now running into the $5- to $9-a-gallon range for heating fuel and gasoline across several areas of the state."

In an interview with The New Yorker last summer Palin explained that she would make demands of a new gas pipeline "to maximize benefits for Alaskans":

"And Alaska we're set up, unlike other states in the union, where it's collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs."

Referendum on Trickle-Down

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, October 31, 2008; A19

SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. -- Emily Daywalt decided to go to the first political rally of her life because she wanted to cheer Sarah Palin, who was here a few days ago to inspire the faithful. Daywalt said she likes that Palin "hunts and that she believes in God and that she is a strong, independent woman."

But ask the 19-year-old from South Mountain, Pa., why she is voting against Barack Obama, and she homes right in on John McCain's closing argument. Obama, Daywalt said, "wants to spread the wealth," which she interprets as meaning that he'd "give it to people who don't do anything."

For all of the McCain campaign's relentless use of guilt-by-association techniques, the 2008 campaign is concluding on a remarkably substantive argument. It is a debate about what constitutes social fairness and whether a top-down or a bottom-up approach to economic growth will define the country's future.

Obama is often described as cautious, but he has been bold and unrelenting in his criticism of trickle-down economics and tax cuts concentrated on the wealthy. He used yesterday's negative numbers on economic growth to press his case against theories that conservatives have been touting for decades.

"The decline in our GDP didn't happen by accident," Obama said. "It is a direct result of the Bush administration's trickle-down, Wall Street-first, Main Street-last policies that John McCain has embraced for the last eight years."

Yes, economic populism is thriving right now, and if Obama wins, his election would not simply be a non-ideological verdict against the status quo. It would be a clear repudiation of conservative economic ideas and McCain's claim that a more egalitarian approach to growth constitutes "socialism." McCain's attacks on Obama's thinking have been so forceful and direct that they require this election to be seen as a referendum that will settle a long-running philosophical argument.

Obama has presented McCain with a problem. By endorsing tax cuts for Americans earning less than $200,000 a year -- i.e., the vast majority of taxpayers -- Obama has complicated the typical Republican claim that Democrats always support raising taxes.

Obama is candid in saying that he thinks the wealthy should pay more so that most Americans can pay less. He also thinks government can help vulnerable members of the middle class and the poor secure health care and go to college.

This has complicated McCain's effort to root his argument on taxes in middle-class self-interest, since Obama already has that covered. So McCain has actually had to defend giving large tax benefits to the wealthy and to business, and engage in a wholesale argument against any sort of redistribution.

McCain regularly charges that Obama wants to be the "redistributor in chief." Speaking at the rally here at Shippensburg University, Palin was forced to say this about Obama's support for a variety of tax credits aimed at helping the poor and middle class: "He says that he is for a tax credit, which is when government takes your money in order to give it away to someone else."

That is, of course, a mighty peculiar definition of tax credits. It is also an odd argument from a ticket that itself is committed to a research-and-development tax credit for corporations.

It's true that Obama favors "refundable" tax credits to help low-income workers, including some who may pay no income taxes but do pay many other taxes. McCain has argued that Obama's refundable tax credits amount to "welfare." That, too, is a strange claim, since McCain favors refundable credits as part of his health plan. But the whole idea is to convince voters such as Emily Daywalt that Obama really is just out to help those "who don't do anything."

And that is why Obama's 30-minute advertisement on Wednesday night was targeted directly to voters such as Daywalt, or at least to those like her who are still persuadable. It was Obama's tribute to the country's working people who seek nothing more than decent incomes, health care and a chance to see their children succeed. It was less a political ad than a documentary about the value of work and the responsibilities of family life.

For years, Republicans have argued that the way to help struggling working people is to give more money to the wealthy. Obama is saying that we should cut out the middleman and help working people directly. My hunch is that Obama's argument will prevail, and that conservatives will then work overtime to try to deny the judgment that the people have rendered.

postchat@aol.com

Wassup???? Change

A Bailout or a Bonanza?

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, September 23, 2008; A21



The uber-capitalists of Wall Street are all socialists now. Free- market ideology, it turns out, doesn't pay the mortgage. That appears to be a job for, ahem, Big Government.

Let's be clear about why we're facing a crisis that could pull down the global financial system. The irresponsibility of individuals who bought houses they couldn't quite afford pales in comparison with the irresponsibility of the financial wizards who built on those shaky mortgages a towering edifice of irrational faith. Someone in the government should have looked at all those trillions of dollars' worth of mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps and demanded that Wall Street prove that all, or even most, of this purported money was real. But we're in the eighth year of the Bush administration; adult supervision left the building long ago.

Now that the whole highly leveraged structure is threatening to fall, some kind of government bailout is necessary and inevitable. But Congress shouldn't approve Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's $700 billion rescue plan without insisting on some measure of equity and accountability.

See, neglecting such details as equity -- in both senses of the word -- and accountability is what got us here in the first place.

Congress should have learned by now what happens when this administration is given a blank check. Unlike the run-up to the Iraq war, at least this time there's a genuine emergency -- we came within a whisker of a financial meltdown last week, and we're still way deep in the woods. No one thinks that delay is an option.

Not Barack Obama, who introduced legislation in 2006 to address lax mortgage lending and in March proposed a new regulatory framework for the financial markets. Not John McCain, who has been all over the map. Within one week, McCain has gone from saying the "fundamentals of the economy are strong" to declaring that "we are in the most serious crisis since World War II."

But first we need to be convinced that Paulson's proposal -- have the government purchase the bad debt -- is the best thing to do. Not all economists believe it is, although it's true that if you put six economists in a room, they'll come up with seven sharply differing, strongly held points of view about the time of day. Assuming that Paulson's plan is deemed workable, the "details" yet to be worked out involve staggering amounts of money. Hedge funds apparently don't qualify for relief, but what about insurance companies that branched out into exotic mortgage-backed investments? What about foreign banks with big U.S. operations?

Clearly there has to be some definition of just who is covered, and there has to be some oversight. And now that the government has nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who's going to run those still-vital institutions? Who's going to run the giant insurance company AIG, which was effectively nationalized last week?

Maybe Congress can insert a provision that broadly insists on the principle of oversight and leaves the particulars to be worked out later. But it would be unconscionable for Congress to absolve a bunch of wealthy financiers of the consequences of their bad decisions and not do the same for homeowners who showed similarly poor judgment. Paulson has indicated his awareness that this is, indeed, an election year -- and that members of Congress are not eager to go home to their districts and explain why Wall Street's pooh-bahs get to keep their mansions and their yachts while working-class families lose their modest homes.

The more contentious issue is the idea, supported thus far mostly by Democrats on Capitol Hill, that there should be salary caps for executives of companies that take advantage of the government bailout. Paulson complains that this will provide a disincentive for companies to participate in the program -- whatever the program turns out to be -- but it seems to me to be a reasonable idea, and a winner politically.

Why shouldn't the executives who put their companies at risk by making unwise investments pay a price for their lack of prudence?

We can't just let the system collapse -- nobody wins in that event. But I thought one of the fundamental tenets of capitalism was a direct relationship between risk and reward. The Masters of the Universe who created this mess ought to share the pain of cleaning it up.

eugenerobinson@washpost.com

Hillary Loans Campaign $6 Million - Is She Asking for Repayment from Senator Obama?

I had recently heard reports on MSNBC's political coverage that (1) Senator Clinton has loaned her campaign $6 million to continue her ill-fated run; and (2) given this past Tuesday's election results, she is looking towards Senator Obama's Campaign to repay that money to her campaign, which I imagine, would in turn go back to repaying the Clintons.

I do not believe the Obama campaign or the Democratic Party owe the Clinton campaign the amount she has loaned her campaign personally. She has chosen to continue her run, long after people have stopped contributing - even her billionaire friends - with just a few of the millions she and Bill have earned in the last years. John Edwards was forced to drop out, although a worthy candidate, because of a lack of funds. Hillary Clinton chose to use her vast personal wealth to promote her campaign.. Unity or not, it would be a misuse of funds of both the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign to offer corporate welfare to a multi-millionaire who made an investment in herself which did not work out.

I hope Senator Obama does not do this. Certainly, Senator Edwards, a great and honorable man, did not make such a request. He withdrew, or suspended, his campaign. Such a request, and any agreement to such a request on the Clintons' behalf would convince me the Democratic Party is back to "business as usual".

I'm missing you now, John Edwards.