When President Barack Obama lashed out last week at Wall Street firms paying out $20 billion in bonuses during a time when taxpayers are propping up the financial system, he expressed an outrage felt by most Americans.

But changing the culture in Washington, D.C., including the revolving door between lawmaking and lobbying among the rich and poweful, is proving difficult for Obama. And changing the culture on WallStreet could be even harder.

Obama, to his credit, is pressing forward. OnWednesday, he an-nounced plans for restrictions on executive pay that would, among other things, limit executive pay to $500,000 for any company receiving federal bailout money.

Obama's plan is a reaction to the legitimate criticism of the Bush adminstration's lack of conditions and accountability when it came to recipients of TARP bailout funding for the financial sector.

Going forward, the Obama administration intends to impose far greater transparency from firms benefiting from federal funds. In addition to the limitation on executive pay is a prohibition against big bonus payments.

However, a presidential scolding and strict new rules going forward is not enough. Most Americans are rightfully angry over what appears to be personal enrichment by the very people who largely are responsible for causing the current economic crisis.

Obama's plan to limit WallStreet pay to $500,000 is similar to a proposal by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., but her plan would set the limit at $400,00, the paycheck earned by the president of the United States. Writing in Newsweek magazine, columnist Jonathan Alter suggests McCaskill's plan doesn't go far enough, because it doesn't include a retroactive "clawback"provision to extract ill-gotten gains earned in recent years by Wall Street's top investment bankers.

On a clawback provision, Alter writes, "The main opposition would likely come from Wall Street types inside the administration who apparently don't think their old buddies should be forced to dip into savings to maintain their lifestyles. Hey, gents, welcome to America."

There is a widespread feeling that WallStreet executives made multimillion-dollar salaries based on profits made while irresponsibly feeding the real estate bubble that triggered the current financial crisis.

Late last month, legislation was introduced in the U.S. Senate to investigate white-collar crimes that might have helped cause the financial mess now bringing so much despair and disruption to the U.S. economy. Interviewed in BusinessWeek magazine, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., predicted the upcoming report on the use of the first part of the $700 billion financial bailout package, to be issued by the Inspector General of TARP, would be "interesting reading." The report is to explain where the money went, how it was used and who benefited.

There is growing public support for the idea that if the monstrous bonuses paid to top financial executives turn out to be based on bogus or misleading financial statements, then there are legal avenues for clawing back that money.

Noting outrage over the big bonuses, Alter said, "I'd settle for just getting that money back....Compensation experts say that's nearly impossible under current law, which means that Obama and Congress will have to change the law." Alter concluded, "They should get cracking."

The daunting economic climate is causing hardship and suffering across much of the economy. There is a widespread feeling that the top executives at WallStreet firms, as well as the heads of the Big Three Detroit automakers who testified in Washington, D.C., in December, have not yet felt any of that pain. Political pressure is mounting for that to change.

Limiting executive compensation and banning big bonuses for executives at companies receiving federal bailout money is a start. But more needs to be done.

Conditions are right to begin to change the culture of greed and conspicuous consumption that was an undeniable part of the backdrop to the current economic crisis.

Millions of Americans are under extraordinary stress due to the financial crisis. They want the financial and business elite, whose companies are being kept alive with tax dollars, to feel pain too. They also are fed up with politics as usual in Congress and want the pending $900 billion stimulus bill to be stripped of pork, and limited to legitimate job-creating projects and necessary infrastructure investment.

It appears Obama gets it. It's time for the rest of Washington to get it too.