"There's nothing here that would stop a company from giving out a $10 million pay package that includes a variety of bonuses and stock awards unless Paulson decides to intervene and decides that that poses an excessive risk," she says.

Past Efforts to Limit Executive Pay

Previous bailout efforts have attempted to address excessive CEO pay.

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 isn't the first time lawmakers have tried to impose limits on executive pay. The Institute for Policy Studies notes that the legislation Congress passed to save the airline industry after 9/11 prohibited the airlines affected by the bailout from giving raises to certain executives (those who earned more than $300,000 during the year 2000) for two years.

Other subsequent efforts to restrict executive compensation have been less clear and less effective. In 2005, Congress put the kibosh on excessive retention and severance bonuses for executives whose companies had filed for bankruptcy, but lawmakers failed to address performance-based bonuses, which proved to be a multi-million dollar loophole that executives could cash in on.