News that corporate executives received huge bonuses, even after their companies got bailout funds from U.S. taxpayers, didn’t go down well.

Response has been swift: President Obama last week issued an order capping pay for those executives at $500,000 a year, bonuses included.

These are tough times and taxpayers have little sympathy for those who would enrich themselves at their expense.

That’s why we applaud the 1,500 state ferry workers who, because of the recession, agreed to forgo raises they’d already negotiated with Gov. Chris Gregoire last year.

On Feb. 2, Gregoire said their sacrifice will save the state $18 million over the next two years. Those workers expected raises of from 1.6 percent to 10.7 percent.

Not all employees have been so generous.

Last September and October, Boeing Co. machinists staged what became the longest strike since 1995 as they demanded pay and benefit increases. That strike may have been long in coming and for valid reasons, but it cost the company an estimated $100 million a day in deferred revenue and postponed delivery of the company’s next-generation 787 Dreamliner.

Locally, some cities have gone without while others have not.

The city of Mountlake Terrace put a spending freeze on travel and basically put the word out to hold the line on non-essential spending.

For local cities, wage and benefit increases are not as easy to hold down because of contractual agreements that pre-date the economic downturn and because of the plague of rising expenses.

Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that Lynnwood’s part-time City Council in December agreed to grant its members the same 100 percent health coverage full-time city employees get.

And, while the Edmonds City Council cut its benefits, it granted Mayor Gary Haakenson a $24,000 raise over the next two years.

Tough times call for sacrifice. It’s time our elected leaders follow suit.