2009.11.05
Weckstein: Low taxes encourage excess executive pay
A return on tax rates
Norb Weckstein
Weckstein is a retired G.E. engineer and manager. He lives in Roanoke.
As Virginia Tech finance professor G. Rodney Thompson noted in his Sept. 11 commentary, "Return taxes to '60s levels," the "heady days of the 1950s and 60s, when the U.S. was ... the envy of the entire world" was also a time when taxes on the highest increment of earnings (affecting only the top 1 percent of taxpayers) were appreciably higher. Financial analyst Bob Barnes' failed attempt to ridicule those facts not withstanding ("Confiscatory tax levels stifle the economy," Oct. 19 commentary), the issue of excessive executive pay that has resulted from lowering the top tax rate is a major problem.
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To take 90% of what some one has legally earned is immoral. Why not have the government just set salaries and wages for all workers?
Comment by Patt — November 5, 2009 @ 12:47 pm
Class envy is so unattractive!
It is no ones business what someone is paid except the employer and the employee. Certainly not the business of the government to set salaries for the private sector.
Comment by John R — November 7, 2009 @ 8:29 am
If the shareholders and the board of directors of the Ballard Biscuit Company want to pay the CEO a big salary it sure is none of my business.
Comment by waynep — November 7, 2009 @ 9:58 am