Pay Czar Plans to Disclose Top Salaries

The Securities and Exchange Commission floated a plan in 2006 to get companies to disclose more about how much top employees are paid, which became known as "The Katie Couric Clause," but that was shot down by corporate lobbyists.

Hodgson notes one effect of Feinberg's disclosure will be to expose his decisions to public scrutiny.

The report also states that Feinberg "seemed very uncomfortable" about clawing back compensation already paid to recipients of government bailout money, a power that extends to all recipients of Troubled Asset Relief Program investments, rather than just the seven that have received the most funds. Feinberg "suggested it would need to be a very egregious example to warrant recoupment," the report states.

"I don't know how egregious it needs to get before somebody might think about clawing back compensation," Hodgson says. "I mean, good grief! What do they need to do? Steal the office furniture?"

Particularly outrageous, Hodgson says, were the findings of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, showing that the nine original TARP recipients, including Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) paid out nearly $9 billion in bonuses despite losing a combined $54 billion in 2008.

A Citi spokesman declined to comment for this article, as did a spokeswoman for GMAC. Messages left with BofA and AIG were not immediately returned.

Representatives for Chrysler Financial, General Motors and Chrysler could not immediately be reached.

-- Written by Dan Freed in New York.

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