So says Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), a liberal member of the House Financial Services Committee, which hosted the three auto execs this morning to examine their requests for $34 billion in emergency loans.

There’s been much made of the $1 annual salaries that the CEOs say they’ll accept as a term for receiving that bailout. But let’s not confuse “salary” with “compensation.” Relative to bonuses and stock options, the salaries of corporate executives often constitute the smallest chunk of the pay package.

Indeed, last month Sherman asked each CEO if they’d be willing to limit total executive compensation to $1 million a year in exchange for the bailout cash.

All say they’ll forgo 2009 bonuses, but refused the $1 million cap. And there’s good reason why.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally, for example, received $22.8 million in 2007, according to Equilar, an executive pay database, via The L.A. Times. But less than half of that — just $9 million — came in the form of “salary and cash incentives.” The rest came from stock options.

For Rick Wagoner, the head of General Motors who received $15.7 million last year, $11.7 came in the form of “stock-based compensation,” the Times notes.

Chrysler, a privately held company, hasn’t released its executive compensation figures.

The stock of all three companies has been in the tank for some time, of course, but that could change for the benefit of the executives if the Big Three were to get some good news — for example, if they could secure $34 billion in taxpayer-funded loans from Congress.

In addition to the compensation question, Sherman also asked the executives: (1) if they would commit to closing foreign plants before domestic ones, and (2) if they’d be willing to set aside funds to honor warranties in the event their companies fail.

The California congressman wasn’t pleased with the responses. From his statement:

My three questions were designed to secure commitments protecting consumers and American workers from the risks associated with the financial difficulties of the Big Three automakers.  Unfortunately, GM, Ford, and Chrysler were unwilling to make these commitments.

Who said it was just Republicans criticizing the bailout?

Fast forward nearly 30 years, and several lawmakers have put the Iacocca challenge to the CEOs of Detroit’s Big Three, who are in Washington this week pleading with Congress for a $25 billion bailout to buoy the sinking industry.

During a Senate Banking Committee hearing with those executives yesterday, Sen. John Tester (D-Mont.) asked point-blank if the well-compensated executives would be willing to make the same sacrifice that Iacocca did. Only one, Chrysler head Robert Nardelli, answered non-evasively. ” I’d be willing to accept that,” he said.

The other two — Ford CEO Alan Mulally and General Motors executive Rick Wagoner — showed no such alacrity for a $1 paycheck. Wagoner boasted of cutting his salary “unilaterally 50 percent” a few years back, but had little response when Tester pointed out that half of an enormous salary is still enormous, relatively speaking.

Mulally rejected the challenger even more bluntly. “I absolutely respect the intent of your question as a symbolic gesture,” he said, “but it is a symbolic gesture.”

Such remarks may not play well with Congress. Even supporters of the auto bailout are warning that huge pay packages for executives of bailed-out companies leave a bad taste with an American public that’s also struggling in the economic downturn.

“I can’t begin to tell you,” Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) told the CEOs yesterday, “what sort of reaction there’d be from the public if you on your own would be willing to take some steps that would reassure the American public that their dollars, if they’re going to be forthcoming, are not going to be used in any way to provide exorbitant salaries and fees to people.”

Judging from the behavior of banks after they got their $700 billion bailout, lawmakers might do better simply to write such restrictions into the legislation.