August 26, 2010 5:11PM # Let’s Regulate Barney Frank’s Pay By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) --- SHARE “Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Tuesday that he will hold a hearing this fall to examine whether regulators are being tough enough in curbing pay practices at Wall Street firms that can lead to excessively risky practices,” [writes](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/24/AR2010082406122.html) Zachary Goldfarb in the *Washington Post*. Hmmm. “Pay practices that can lead to excessively risky practices.” Since Barney Frank entered Congress, federal spending has risen from $590 billion in 1980 to $3.7 trillion this year. ([U.S. Budget, Historical Tables, Table 1.1](http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy11/index.html)) The annual deficit has risen from $74 billion to $1.5 trillion. Gross federal debt rose from $909 billion to $13.8 trillion — and to over $15 trillion next year. (Table 7.1) And all this without a major war or depression during those 30 years. Maybe we should adjust pay practices for members of Congress to give them an incentive to avoid risky, unaffordable, out-of-control borrowing and spending. ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).