The monster awakens.

One wonders how all the liberal members of the business community who donated massive amounts of money to Democrats in the 2006 and 2008 must feel now at the realization of a monster they helped spawn.

Here’s a scary couple of paragraphs from the D.C. Examiner:

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the “Pay for Performance Act of 2009,” would impose government controls on the pay of all employees — not just top executives — of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

The purpose of the legislation is to “prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards,” according to the bill’s language. That includes regular pay, bonuses — everything — paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested. And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds.

In addition, the bill gives [the treasury secretary] Geithner the authority to decide what pay is “unreasonable” or “excessive.” And it directs the Treasury Department to come up with a method to evaluate “the performance of the individual executive or employee to whom the payment relates.”

Yesterday, Congress wanted to control the salaries and decisions of just business executives whose companies received bailout money. Today, they want to expand it to ALL EMPLOYEES at any firm that received bailout money. What of tomorrow?

Might tomorrow it expand beyond bailout recipients? Might it expand to any private sector that receives any public funds or grants? Once Congress is so empowered, why stop at just bailout recipients? After all, how many private sectors receive subsidies and government money? Farming and agriculture. In a big way. What else? The auto industry. Sugar on top, Congress already determines fuel standards and safety standards, they dictate what cars consumers want instead of consumers dictating that. The airlines. Energy? Science? Constuction? You betcha. Even child care. Maybe they’ll determine how you raise your kids too. Secretary Geithner can tell you if your child rearing is “unreasonable” or “excessive.”