Not for himself, of course, but rather for America’s corporate executives. In New York City today, Bush spoke on Wall Street about his belief that “the salaries and bonuses of CEOs should be based on their success at improving their companies and bringing value to their shareholders.”
So often, pay for performance is a concept assumed to be applicable only to the rank and file. It’s a worthy cause to elevate it to the c-level as well and it’s great that Bush is pushing the idea.
It just makes you wonder what HIS salary would be if we applied pay for performance thinking to his $400k “guideline.” Given his approval ratings, it would be an interesting exercise indeed.
And how about the succession planning functions. We wouldn’t need elections for our Pres and Congressionalfolks—the system could just spit out a successor. No messy recounts and hanging chads. If we can populate a database with information on all current pols in DC, we could bypass the primaries, midterms and presidential elections–then the political wonks would need to find real jobs. Just run a succession plan for Dubya–one wonders, though, whether even Hillary, Obama, or Rudy would show up as viable successors.
That said, a US presidential salary of $400K is pretty paltry for running an entire country. Does a Pres really get paid for performance?
Pay for Performance? How about Terminate for Performance?
Apparently, Former U.S. Attorney John McKay’s performance was so spectacular, backed by a stellar review and rave 360s from colleagues and peers, that Dubya decided to offer him the ultimate compliment for any high performer: “You’re Fired!”
See article:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/02/08/national/a072652S40.DTL