PERSPECTIVE: Disturbed that there needs to be a ‘pay czar’

» Obama administration is planting the ‘seeds of destruction’ when it comes to commanding the economy.

Pay for executives, especially in the financial industry, that offered huge bonuses for high-risk strategies but little accountability when things turned sour was no doubt one of many causes of the current economic difficulties. To listen to some media reports, one might assume that greedy executives are the main reason the U.S. economy fell into recession.

We’ll leave the simplistic, politicized explanations to others. And we’ll agree that companies that accept billions of dollars in federal largesse — General Motors, AIG, and Citigroup, among others — must accept unusual levels of government oversight as long as they’re on the dole.

Still, it’s disturbing to learn that the Obama administration has appointed a “pay czar” to help set compensation policies at American businesses. The administration has reportedly abandoned plans to institute pay caps at companies that have received federal bailout money — after belatedly realizing the policy would simply drive the most talented people to unregulated hedge funds or to banks with headquarters outside the United States. The reversal reveals much about the underlying philosophy of President Obama’s economic policies — a disdain for private enterprise combined with a surprising ignorance of the basic forces at work in a free-market system.

And, of course, an absolute certainty that government offers greater wisdom than the striving and unruly masses.

We’re grateful that the administration has shown an occasional willingness to back away from its worst instincts once the unpleasant consequences are made clear. We just wish the president and his advisers possessed better instincts to begin with. The administration’s compulsion to command and control vast tracts of the American economy are planting the seeds of destruction for both a lasting recovery and the Democratic Party.

When will the weeds begin to sprout?

— The Richmond Times Dispatch