President Barack Obama may be having a tough time selling his stimulus package to Republicans, but there seems to be common agreement on another issue: limits on executive compensation for companies receiving federal bailouts. Obama last week condemned the "irresponsibility" of those who received payouts even as their businesses sought a handout. Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the Republican minority leader, had to agree that in such cases, "Executive pay caps are appropriate."

We don't know how some executives are going to make ends meet under such tight restrictions. Most Americans, though, would dearly love to eke out a living on a paltry $500,000 a year. As President Obama noted, Americans do not begrudge success and the rewards that come with it, but they get upset when they see executives being rewarded for failure. With taxpayer money, to boot.

A study by a compensation research firm called Equilar, cited by the New York Times, reported that the CEOs of the 10 largest financial services in a survey of 200 companies with revenue of at least $6.5 billion received $320 million in 2008 — even though the companies had mortgage-related losses of $55 billion.

Not all of them are lining up for a bailout. But companies handing out money like party favors to the executives despite the huge losses they incurred are engaging in irresponsible and reckless behavior that has brought the economy to the brink of collapse.

Obama's proposal could have a salutary effect on Wall Street and across corporate America, where the culture for years has favored lavish rewards for CEOs who managed to pump up stock prices in the short run, regardless of the long-term consequences.

In 2007, for example, the three top executives at each of the three companies that have received large federal bailouts — General Motors, Bank of America and Citigroup — got a tidy $75.7 million, an average of $8.4 million apiece. Many others have gotten even greater amounts while their companies lost money.

One of the lines that drew the most applause during the president's talk with an audience in Fort Myers, Fla., was this: "No more enormous bonuses for companies that taxpayers are helping out." Clearly, the American people get it. They know unfairness when they see it.

They understand that demanding compensation caps is not, as some critics of Obama would have it, about government meddling in the private sector. Nor is it about destroying incentives for hard-working executives. It is about the government, at long last, saying No to those with power and privilege who want to sustain their status at the expense of others.