The Washington Times reports:
Weeks before the Treasury Department announced a half-million dollar salary cap for executives at companies taking federal aid, one of President Obama's top political appointees reported a seven-figure compensation deal with one of the nation's biggest recipients of bailout cash.It is "bad taste" to have Jacob Lew as a high level Obama appointee? Here's Obama on bad taste:
Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew filed financial-disclosure papers last month showing he took home just under $1.1 million last year as a managing director at Citi Alternative Investments, a unit of Citigroup. So far, Citigroup has gotten $45 billion in federal bailout funds.
Last week, Treasury announced rules to keep senior executives at some firms that get bailout money from earning more than $500,000. The cap won't apply to Mr. Lew, however. It isn't retroactive, and not all executives at companies taking bailout money are affected by the new rules, compensation specialists say.
"For top executives to award themselves these kinds of compensation packages in the midst of this economic crisis is not only in bad taste — it's a bad strategy — and I will not tolerate it as president," Obama said. "We're going to be demanding some restraint in exchange for federal aid — so that when firms seek new federal dollars, we won't find them up to the same old tricks."Great moments in TARP.
