That has been the mantra of the Bush administration and Republicans for year, and it was even included in the TARP:

Congress wanted to guarantee that the $700 billion financial bailout would limit the eye-popping pay of Wall Street executives, so lawmakers included a mechanism for reviewing executive compensation and penalizing firms that break the rules.

But at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision, congressional aides said. The change stipulated that the penalty would apply only to firms that received bailout funds by selling troubled assets to the government in an auction, which was the way the Treasury Department had said it planned to use the money.

Now, however, the small change looks more like a giant loophole, according to lawmakers and legal experts. In a reversal, the Bush administration has not used auctions for any of the $335 billion committed so far from the rescue package, nor does it plan to use them in the future. Lawmakers and legal experts say the change has effectively repealed the only enforcement mechanism in the law dealing with lavish pay for top executives.

The Republicans spent last week whining and complaining that we couldn’t spend $14 billion to help protect millions of blue collar jobs, yet they don’t bat an eye when we taxpayer money is wasted on these golden parachutes. Why? Because that money goes to the upper class. The Republicans have been on the front lines of this class warfare, trying to squash the middle class. Hopefully the Democrats will fight back for 95% of this nation. If they don’t, then the U.S. is in for really dark times.