It's a Free Market, Not a Government Market

I might have been bad. But it's because I heard bureaucrats trying to be good.

This isn't an issue about Barney Frank or Jesse Jackson. Or any one of a number of Wal-Mart bashers.

It's about their faith in the government to correct ills they see in private enterprise.

That's not their role. That's not the government's role.

Be very careful when someone in government says he wants to fix something — be it CEO salaries that he deems too high or a retailer's work schedule that he deems too harsh.

Keep in mind it wasn't the government that fired Bob Nardelli at Home Depot. It was angry shareholders.

And it wasn't the government that corrected crooked corporate book-keeping. It was the vast majority of good CEOs who couldn't stomach the sins of a few spoiling the decency of the many.

Congress has a problem with profits. I do not.

Congress seems to think it's a sin companies look after their bottom line. I do not.

And Congress thinks it's best suited to police exorbitant salaries. I do not.

It's a free market. It's not a government market.

If a team wants to pay 100 million bucks to an untested Japanese pitcher, it's their call, their money. So too a company that wants to dole out the same to an untested CEO.

The pitcher's worth it if he performs. A waste of money if he doesn't. So too the CEO.

Shareholders own public companies. Not Uncle Sam.

When they make money, I think they're OK with the boss making money.

When they don't make money, they're not OK with the boss making money.

I just wish Congress would spend as much time looking at its own pay for performance as it does others. Then start practicing what this huge glass house preaches:

Perform. Get paid.

Do not. Get out.

Watch Neil Cavuto weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on "Your World with Cavuto" and send your comments to cavuto@foxnews.com