How Did They Miss This?

Incompetence, that's how.

WASHINGTON -- Turns out there is a problem with limiting the pay of highly compensated bankers: the Wall Street high flyers pay taxes, too.

Imagine this: Capping top bank executives at $400,000 a year, as the Senate version of the $800-plus billion economic stimulus had called for, would have cost the government $11 billion in lost tax revenue by 2019. That's more than $1 billion a year, according to an estimate this week by the Congressional Budget Office.

Ouch.