NO.

The solution, Paulson argued, was to approve TARP and use $700 billion to buy the toxic assets. Instead of buying up toxic assets, the TARP money was used to partially nationalize the banking industry.

TARP didn't do what was SO NECESSARY to prevent a 'collapse.' Was it necessary to appropriate $700 billion to buy toxic assets? In hindsight, we can see the answer is No, because the money wasn't used that way

I love Heritage, but I remember them supporting TARP from the outset, and I disagreed.

I was and will continue to think that the stimulus was poorly conceived and that natural business practices would have been better suited for a correction to these companies. Government intervention is usually an attempt to control the damage already created by government mandated intervention. I respect our court system and would have allowed them to make the right decisions for these companies and we wouldn't be suffering through this Marxist take over of everything American.

It frightens me when our president recreates a deal after the fact and basically steals previously earned pay from people who did not cause the calamity that was formed mostly by reckless legislation from previous years. This president is acting more like an illegitimate tyrant than a leader of a great nation.

The housing bubble and subsequent collapse was caused by Legislative mandates and financial laws put in place to inflate the housing worth to reap more economic leverage from the masses. Increasing spending and credit was a plan from the government not these executives, they are just caught in the riptide of Obama's mass blaming using pin the tail on the donkey while he set's up a Marxist rescue of hapless America.

Like other socialist regimes he needs enemies, diversions and acts of righteous indignation against an easy foe to act as though he has a plan. He is reactionary at best, devious at worst and impossible if he continues this rampage against the American system and its people.

WHAT ABOUT THE COST OF ALL THOSE CZARS WHO HOLD NO ACCOUNTABILITY.

The government has no right interfering in the profits or pay of employees in the private sector. These industries were BRIBED! And if they weren't bribed Obama wouldn't have been able to use the choice words "tax payers assistance." Obama pays government workers with our money. There are more positions that are over paid at government's forced expense to the tax payers then those working and providing for themselves without infringing on the tax payers. He's stilling our ability to live without government.

That being said, I would caution that people do not fall for the "class warfare" message.

Obama and his admin know there is no sympathy in these times for people who get a salary of 1 million instead of 30 million. On the surface, it is ludicrous.

The danger of this is that a "hybrid capitalism/socialism system" immediately re-invents America if enforced across all industries. Who determines what and how much is fair? Does an actor who gets $20 million for making a movie fall into this category? What intrinsic worth is a movie?

You can't have capitalism for some groups and not others.

As for the article's comment about "these executives working somewhere else", there is truth to that – as long as government does not set pay caps across the entire economy.

Then there will not be any place to run.