The first rung of the slippery slope has collapsed

Some people -- mainly republicans -- worry that all the bailouts and recovery plans have this country headed in a more European or even Chinese style socialistic government. I wonder if the first step has already collapsed.

I heard today that Obama has set a new mandate that any business receiving government money must not have it's top administrators receiving anything more than $500,000. He said "we must not reward incompetence."

He said we need to encourage responsibility and accountability. I actually agree with Obama here. If you are a company administrator running your business so bad that you need government assistance to keep running, then your bosses are not doing their job. They should not be rewarded with $1.5 million compensation packages.

I've always petitioned that I thought these businesses should not have received government assistance in he first place, I see no problem with loan to be paid back.

However, I also see the other side of this. You have businesses who are paying these massive wages and bonuses not without a reason. In major league baseball where the Yankees offered Mark Teixeira $25 million a year to play ball for the Yankees not because they want to part with all that money, but because that's a sound business practice if you want the top people for the job.

But, also as in baseball, if Mark Teixeira does not produce the stats needed to make the Yankees a productive organization, he will be canned and not rewarded with a new million dollar contract.

So, that said, if we are going to fall into a socialistic system where the government is going to get involved in rewarding failed businesses, the government is going to want a say in how they run their businesses. And, thus, the $500,000 cap makes sense.

In a sense, the first step in the slippery slope toward a more socialistic government has collapsed. What do you think?