Pay gap widening

The backlash over Avista CEO Gary Ely’s $2.57 million in compensation goes deeper than anger over rising power bills. Ely may well be the savior of an important Fortune 500 company in this region; he may deserve every penny. But the rapid rise in executive pay over the past 25 years hasn’t always been tied to performance and it’s come as the pay for average workers has stagnated despite productivity gains.

In 1982, the average CEO made 44 times what the average worker made. Now, the multiplier is 475. Are chief executives really 10 times more valuable than they used to be? Were they horribly underpaid back then? Was the average worker overpaid?

In Great Britain, the average CEO makes 22 times the average worker. In Japan, it’s 11 times.

Return to gender. The Natural Resources Defense Council responded to the news that Dirk Kempthorne will be the new secretary of the Interior Department with this description of the Idaho governor: “Gale Norton in pants.”

Hmm … isn’t that a bit sexist?

To make sure, I ran it through the trusty Gender Reversal Machine and came up with this parallel: “Condi Rice is Colin Powell in a skirt.”

Ding! It’s sexist.

Deficit Inattention Disorder. You might be a conservative, if you:

A) Value tax cuts.

B) Value balanced budgets.

C) Get the Jeff Foxworthy lead-in to this quiz.

But what if you value tax cuts and balanced budgets but must choose between the two? Well, if you’re a conservative U.S. senator, you choose tax cuts.

To prove it, the Senate recently held a vote on a pay-as-you-go budget provision that would provide for corresponding spending cuts each time Congress lowered taxes or increased mandatory spending, such as Medicare and Social Security. Such a rule helped bring the federal budget into surplus but it was allowed to expire in 2002 to pave the way for tax cuts. Since then, large deficits have returned.

The attempt to reinstate “pay-go” failed when most Republicans voted against it. U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., offered this rationale: “(It) sounds like something that makes sense. But to be honest, what pay-go is, is a tax increase.”

To be honest, that’s baloney. Republican leadership simply doesn’t have the courage to bring taxation and spending into balance. Five moderate Republicans and 44 Democrats voted in favor of budget discipline, including Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell. Idaho Sens. Larry Craig and Mike Crapo voted no.

Patriot act. In a recent Zogby/Le Moyne College poll of troops in Iraq, 72 percent said the U.S. military should exit Iraq within the year. President Bush sees the troops staying through 2008. So, what’s a good patriot to do: Support the troops or support the president?