Priorities II

by digby

I’ll just pile on dday’s post above with this bizarre piece of legislative salami:

Unfortunately, Sherman told me that he believes the executive compensation limits added to the Senate’s stimulus are going to get removed during conference talks with the House. The reason: a new Congressional Budget Office estimate that the pay caps will cost the government $10.8 billion in lost tax revenue over the next 10 years. “The plan is to take out the executive compensation provisions … and blame the Republicans for setting out the level [of $800 billion]” for the final version of the stimulus, Sherman said. “The question,” he added, “is whether the two senators from Maine, in particular, want to see their insistence on a [maximum] dollar amount [for the stimulus] … be the reason why the executive compensation stuff comes out of the bill.”

Now I appreciate a good wedge as much as the next person. And I think it’s great for the Democrats to be finding ways to try to make the Republicans look bad. But what in the hell are they doing telling the press about this? Is their some rule that says Democrats must indulge the press and tell them what their strategy is ahead of time? Sheesh.Of course, there’s always the possibility that they really want to cut the executive compensaiton provision. Nah … they wouldn’t do that would they?

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