If you play with fire...
But this isn't a diatribe against CEO pay. In our capitalist system, you're free to earn what you can, and what the market will bear. The government shouldn't be setting what corporate executives earn.

...expect to get burned
No, this is for those executives who are taking the government's money. If they're turning to the taxpayers to get bailed out, then as part-owners of their business, we have a right to say what they'll be paid.

The board of directors should have taken this role, but instead they've abdicated it, allowing CEO compensation to spiral out of control. Unfortunately, we investors haven't done our part, either. We were all too willing to hop aboard the gravy train with biscuit wheels, so long as we were sharing in the growth.

Law of unintended consequences
Yet we must tread carefully here, too. The last time the government tried to cap CEO compensation, we got the explosion of stock options. Like squeezing a balloon, when you press down here, something else pops up over there.

There is hope, however, that as ineffectual as these limits may be, they may form the basis for directors to rein in the excesses on their own. If only because companies don't want the government to meddle in their business, the law may cause reforms to take hold.