In that cult classic movie “Office Space”, Bob Porter and Bob Slydell, two performance evaluation consultants come in to the office and begin determining who to fire, who to promote and how to pay them. “The Bobs” then remake the office in their vision firing some hard working employees and promoting Peter, the main character, even though he’s lazy and misses most of the workday playing Tetris at his desk, fishing or plotting to steal from the company.

Well, if you thought that was bad, now Democrat Congressman Barney Frank wants to give the US government control over the salaries of every employee in any company that takes any amount of federal bailout money. You heard me right. Barney wants Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to be a “Bob”.

The new legislation, the “Pay for Performance Act of 2009,” would impose government controls on the pay of all employees — not just top executives — of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

Democrats say the legislation would “prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards.” So how is Secretary Geithner, a man who has worked in the government or in academia his entire life, supposed to determine if workers from the janitor to the receptionist to the IT Director are being paid in an “unreasonable and excessive” manner? If he’s going to be evaluating anyones salary, can we pay our lawmakers based on performance?

The bill is not only meant to effect money being given from here forward, but, like the AIG bonus tax idea, this is legislation that is retroactive.

Congressman Alan Grayson, the legislation’s author, begun framing the Democrat’s view of the issue as a showdown between the unimpeachable, those who will vote for the bill, and those who are in the pocket of the financial services industry and will vote against it.

Grayson expects the bill to pass the House, and as we talked, he framed the issue in a way to suggest that virtuous lawmakers will vote for it, while corrupt lawmakers will vote against it.

“This bill will show which Republicans are so much on the take from the financial services industry that they’re willing to actually bless compensation that has no bearing on performance and is excessive and unreasonable,” Grayson said. “We’ll find out who are the people who understand that the public’s money needs to be protected, and who are the people who simply want to suck up to their patrons on Wall Street.”

This bill seems to be another in a continuing trend of legislation pushing congressional policy further and further to the extreme left of the political spectrum. Along with Card Check, and the administration’s proposal last week to allow their take over of failing companies, this bill seeks to dramatically increase government control. This has Congressman Scott Garrett of New Jersey worried.

“This is a growing concern, that the powers of the Treasury in this area, along with what Geithner was looking for last week, are mind boggling.”

I talked today with a key Republican aide about this legislation, and he summed it like this, “It’s called socialism. Too much government.” He also said he didn’t foresee many Members in his caucus voting for this bill. That would follow the trend established in committee where the bill was voted out 38 to 22, almost entirely along party lines.

We’ll keep an eye on this as it moves through the legislative process.