The initiative you have been waiting for, the one that has been teased by the Obama administration’s many mouths, wage controls for corporate executives, is officially on its way.

The Washington Post is reporting Wednesday afternoon that the Obama administration has proposed legislation that would create new authority in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and shareholders of private companies to establish rules about the wages.

It’s an interesting proposal in that the shareholders of corporations already have multiple feedback mechanisms to voice concerns about how top echelon officers are paid, and since they are only parties who experience gains and losses based on the actions of a company’s leaders, it makes sense that they should be the ones who have a say.

But thrust of the proposal is clear: If the shareholders don’t feel like punishing well-paid and hard-working executives, the SEC is going to step in and do it for them.  From the Post’s article:

A second proposal would authorize the SEC to ensure that compensation committees at companies act independently in setting executive pay. Members of these committees would not be able to take any fees from their respective firms other than what they make for serving on the panels. Attorneys or consultants that help members in their work must be hired by and report to the committee rather than the chief executive of a firm.

Paradoxically, if the Obama administration has its way and curtails the earning ability of those in the highest tax bracket, the revenue that would be generated by President Obama’s plans to squeeze the rich will, of course, be much smaller.  Let’s hope ABC’s Jake Tapper, White House press corpsman extraordinaire, manages to squeeze a query along those lines into the next gaggle with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

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