Since it was not the equivalent of Robespierre and the boys trotting Marie Antoinette off to the guillotine, some critics argue that the modest executive pay reform measures the White House announced last week are not enough and that more lethal weapons should be deployed.

"Given the level of public outrage over the Wall Street bonus bonanza, the administration should have gone much further to stop bailout profiteering," said Sarah Anderson of the Institute for Policy Studies, an unabashed critic of Corporate America.

University of Maryland economics professor Peter Morici says the restrictions "are far too limited."

"Bank executives and compensation specialists are crying foul, but they created the crisis and now won't accept responsibility and reasonable pay for the work they do," Dr. Morici says.

There is one point of agreement: with former Merrill Lynch executive John Thain spending $35,000 for a commode and bailout poster child Citigroup shamed into canceling an order for a $50 million corporate jet, President Obama has considerable political cover for whatever he decides to do.

Lest we forget, increases in executive compensation have been outpacing increases in the wages of the average American worker for as long as politicians have been pontificating about remedying the situation. Indeed, some contend previous government attempts to curb pay have actually made matters worse.

In 1992, Congress ruled that when it came to senior executive pay that wasn't based on performance, companies could not deduct more than $1 million for tax purposes. So companies started distributing stock options, a form of compensation that became so ubiquitous that increases in executive compensation easily outdistanced inflation.

"Limiting executive pay through company tax deductions does not work," said Bruce Ellig, a New York-based adviser to corporate boards on pay issues. Mr. Ellig said basing curbs based on taxes that an executive pays makes more sense.

When Congress imposed tax penalties on departing executives for golden parachute payments they received, companies started reimbursing the executives for the increased taxes.

The government's track record for curbing excess executive pay makes University of Maryland finance professor Lemma W. Senbet leery of the government's response to outraged taxpayers.

"I'm worried when they start intervening, they may end up producing something that's counterproductive," Dr. Senbet says.

Here's what Mr. Obama wants to do: cap annual cash compensation for senior executives at the biggest basket cases -- AIG, Citigroup and Bank of America -- at $500,000. Any restricted stock executives receive couldn't be sold until the government was repaid or the institution met certain financial targets. The companies would have to disclose more about their compensation policies, submit compensation to a nonbinding shareholder vote and develop a policy for corporate spending on corporate jets, office renovations, entertainment and other luxury items.

The restrictions wouldn't apply to relatively healthy financial institutions that have received money from the $700 billion emergency fund. They would apply to future recipients, but those banks could be exempted if they met disclosure requirements and, if required, submitted their pay packages to the so-called "say on pay" shareholder vote.

"Is compensation really going to be cut or are companies just going to find a way out of it?" asks Temple University accounting professor Steven Balsam.

Dr. Balsam, who told the U.S. Senate Finance Committee in 2007 that disclosure doesn't necessarily curb executive pay, says shareholders already have a wealth of information on executive pay based on disclosure requirements adopted in recent years by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Moreover, Mr. Obama's proposal doesn't apply to many employees who are highly compensated. "There are people on trading desks making millions and they're not affected by these proposals," Dr. Balsam states.

As tepid as many say Mr. Obama's initiative is, there are those who believe he's going overboard. They want to halt any talk about extending pay curbs to executives outside the banking industry, an initiative Mr. Obama and many reformers have in mind.

"The restrictions placed on participants in the financial bailout ... would undermine the legitimate role of the board of directors in determining management compensation," says the Center on Executive Compensation, a Washington, D.C. group founded by human resources managers at large companies.

The center and other critics have legitimate concerns about the government intruding in the free market for high-priced talent. But in a politically-charged environment, those concerns are in danger of being overwhelmed by a concept that is easier for a majority of outraged taxpayers to understand: that, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, the average CEO makes about 340 times more than the average worker.

That statement is liable to carry more weight with the elected officials deciding the fate of corporate executives, including the minority among them who would do Marie Antoinette proud.