Goose...meet the Gander...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Wednesday appointed a compensation czar who will have broad discretion to set the pay for 175 top executives at seven of the nation’s largest companies, which received hundreds of billions of dollars in federal assistance to survive.

The mandate given to the new compensation official, Kenneth R. Feinberg, a well-known Washington lawyer, reflects the federal government’s increasingly intrusive role in the corporate affairs of deeply troubled companies. From his nondescript office in Room 1310 of the Treasury building, Mr. Feinberg will set the salaries and bonuses of some of the top corporate executives in America, including Kenneth Lewis, the chief executive of Bank of America; Vikram Pandit, the head of Citigroup, and Fritz Henderson, the chief executive of General Motors.

Please...please...please...someone with a signficant amount of their own expendable income laying around start a movement that places referendum votes in all 50 states that ties performance of elected politicians to their salaries. If there is a deficit, they receive no pay (and perhaps penalties in the form of taxes that will encourage constituents to fire their voluminous asses). If they balance the budget, we will provide performance driven salaries reflective of the result. The Fed has set the precedent. Let's apply it properly.