USA Today Promotes Anti-free Market Study

USA Today is furthering an ideal that’s more socialist than American – penalize the executives because they make more than everyone else.

“To say the pay gap between Wall Street’s top titans and average Americans is widening would be an understatement,” wrote Adam Shell in the August 30 USA Today.

The USA Today article was about a study by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and United for a Fair Economy criticizing the compensation of private-equity and hedge-fund manager executives.

Their solution: Government involvement to prevent the “pay gap between CEOs and workers” from widening.

Sarah Anderson, an IPS director, “wants Congress to close the loophole allowing private investment managers to pay lower tax rates than ordinary Americans.”

“[W]hat we are talking about though in terms of proposals in Congress is allowing shareholders to vote every year on these pay packages and also fixing the loopholes that are in our tax policies that actually encourage excessive CEO pay,” said Anderson on CNBC’s August 29 “The Call.”

But the problem with Anderson’s solution is that it is undermining the free market, as David John of the Heritage Foundation pointed out. “[T]he question is what are you getting for [higher executive compensation] and that is what this report doesn’t show,” said John, also on CNBC’s August 29 “The Call.” “I’m willing to pay someone 10 million bucks if he’ll earn me a hundred million bucks.”