The White House Office of Management & Budget has announced that it will be submitting a proposal to Congress to cap reimbursement levels for executives of federal contractors at rates no higher than the salary of the President. The current cap for calculating reimbursements is $763,000, and will need to be raised to $950,000 under the current formula, which is based upon surveys of pay of private sector CEO’s and other senior personnel. While the release from OMB states that the measure, if adopted, would have the potential of saving taxpayers “hundreds of millions of dollars over what they would have to pay if the cap remains unchanged,” there are no actual statistics provided. The OMB’s proposal brings to mind the response of Babe Ruth to a reporter’s statement that the salary of $80,000 he was demanding in 1930 was more than the President’s $75,000 pay: “I know, but I had a better year than Hoover.”
