<b>IN’s Cooper:</b> CONJOB a surefire way to boost employment

Proposal would leverage CEOs' greed for the benefit of all mankind — or at least those who are still pounding the pavement

Word leaking from the White House about tonight’s State of the Union message is that its primary, secondary and tertiary thrust is going to be about jobs. Good idea.
With the unemployment rate near 10%, it makes political sense for President Barack Obama to be obsessed with job creation. If he’s looking for any last-minute ideas — and believe me, the job-creating suggestions he’s received from big-name thinkers so far haven’t been all that terrific — let me offer a surefire winner.
Here’s the idea: For every 100 jobs a publicly owned company creates each year, its highest-paid executives should be allowed to receive $1 million in compensation tax-free.
The Cooper New Employment Justification and Opportunities Bill (CONJOB), which is what the enabling legislation will be called, harnesses one of America’s greatest natural resources — the short-term thinking, greed and self-absorption of big-company CEOs — to help the hapless victims of our nation’s financial collapse and deindustrialization.
At first, I didn’t include the heads of privately owned companies in the plan. Chief executives of big and small family-owned and privately held companies operate under the laws of normal economics and rarely are indifferent to shareowners (often their family members) and employees (who they typically have known for years). But then I decided it wasn’t fair to penalize the good guys; give them the tax break too.
But big-company CEOs are a different breed altogether and need an incentive to do the right thing. You have to understand big-company CEOs’ motivation: They look out for No. 1 exclusively and at all times. As evidenced by their runaway compensation, regardless of performance, and their obsessive concern over short-term performance (which drives their outsize compensation), most big company CEOs couldn’t care less about long-term shareholders and employees — despite their public pronouncements to the contrary.
Since rubber-stamp corporate boards have no desire to rein in the CEO that feeds them and since legislation or regulation to curb outlandish CEO pay would extend government power into areas where it doesn’t belong, let’s throw in the towel and turn defeat into victory.
Let the CEO gluttons feed at the corporate trough, but let’s make them pay for it through job creation. Imagine their delight in earning $10 million or $20 million tax-free. All they’d have to do is hire 1,000 or 2,000 people for full-time jobs with regular benefits.
Under CONJOB, the fact that work done by these newly hired Americans could be done more cheaply in China will be irrelevant. If CEOs are incentivized to hire Americans, they will find a rationale to make the hiring appear brilliant.
Sure, CONJOB means that the government will forgo income taxes on CEO pay. But Republicans will never object to a tax break for rich people, and Democrats will just hold their nose and take credit for creating jobs.
CONJOB is a win-win-win. Let’s hope it’s not too late to give it a try.