Politicians in Washington like to complain about overpaid CEOs, and luckily now they don’t have to travel far to find them.

The Washington Business Journal reports that while nationwide CEOs of top companies saw a 5.5 percent pay hike, Beltway-area CEOs saw a 37 percent raise — more than in any other city.

This may be yet another symptom of the new Giant Sucking Sound: the nation’s wealth rushing to the seat of government power in the wake of the Bush Bailouts and Obama’s spectacular increase of government’s role in the economy.

Other symptoms: DC’s housing market is the second-strongest in the nation according to one recent measure; the richest county in the nation, and 6 of the 10 wealthiest, are DC bedroom communities; and the area’s unemployment is the lowest in the nation.

The lesson is clear: government, not the free market, is where money is made these days.

The message from the politicians, bureaucrats, contractors, lobbyists and the rest of those benefiting from government spending in Washington to the rest of the country is clear: keep sending in your taxes.

Timothy Carney writes for the Washington Examiner, where this first appeared.