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Tough times call for tough decisions. The Obama administration did an outstanding job avoiding a global economic melt down. It’s a shame the administration had to deal with that so soon. Now that health care is due to be wrapped up soon, It’s time for the government to show how much they understand what Americans are going through. Michelle Obama, talk to the President, he’ll listen to you.
Barack Obama should initiate a pay freeze across the board for all government workers for the next three years. He earlier initiated a small freeze on public employees that were pulling in more than $100,000. Well it’s time to dig a little deeper. Why not put a freeze on pay raises at $80,000. The health care bill wil save the budget billion of dollars, many are forgetting that. Isn’t it about America? Everybody should give a little towards the deficit.
When a private company suffers from an economic downturn or becomes unprofitable, officials take steps to cut costs, including salary decreases, wage freezes or layoffs. Why not the U.S? We haven’t been profitable. Democrats can use it as a reminder of what Bush left them. Federal employees can afford a wage freeze because their pay and benefits are far better than private sector workers. Besides, it’s good politics.
Be the first to set the example, before Scott Brown starts talking about it. The federal government is broke, but it continues to keep adding people and increasing salaries and benefits. Aside from receiving Social Security, federal workers have great pension benefits. An increasingly large number of retirees will be paid cushy benefits forever.
If it’s a good idea for the United Kingdom’s labour party, it should be good enough for the U.S. It might help Gordon Brown get elected again.
Show some courage, ram health care through like Republicans rammed through the Presidential election in 2000. Half these Democrats were not in office when it all went down back in Florida.
8 Comments
And break up the union workers while he’s at it, maybe?
Perhaps we could look at people who make more than $80,000/year in Washington, DC, do you suppose? Like maybe federal contractors? Why is it certain people want to reduce the pay and benefits of the desk workers and the ones who man the phones and never talk about those drawing over six figure salaries?
lower the wages of the middle class. Brilliant!
Right, cut their wages so they have more incentive to become lobbyists…
Which is already happening on the Hill and in the military.
From my vantage point in Crystal City, I see the following:
- active duty military jumping to contractors when they hit retirement: therefore collecting a much higher paycheck, while still entitled to the housing stipend their spouse collects and the military’s universal health care system.
- Senior staffers at the Hill leaving for lobbyists, since the lobbyists pay for their knowledge and experience and this administration hasn’t cracked down on it like they said they would. This increases their influence, not diminishes it.
- Hill liaisons at the Pentagon and other federal departments jumping to the Hill to fill aforementioned senior staffer positions, with the intent of running the very departments they’re leaving 10-15 years down the road.
7434be, your post is either brilliant satire or was intended for circulation at the Heritage Foundation.
7434be, You said:
You mean those private financial companies that had to be bailed out by the rest of us, then played games with their balance sheets to hide their toxic assets, so they would look like they made big profits this year, so they could pay their executives more in compensations than they ever had before?
Somehow I don’t think the Government workers or anyone else with half a brain will be happy to except pay freezes in the absence of confiscatory taxes directed at (1) the banksters who’ve received excessive compensation, not to mention the top-level insurance company executives whose management has been killings millions of Americans each year by denying them coverage so they can walk home with an average of $11 million per year in compensation.
But, seriously, I think your idea is a monumentally stupid one. First, Government workers are paid less, not more, than their private sector counterparts.
Second, why should Government workers pay the price for an economic crash that was caused by (1) gamblers bringing down the financial system, (2) stupid free market economic policies carried to extremes by the last five administrations including this one, thus far, and the failure of non-civil service regulators under political control to do their jobs.
Third, the Federal Government is not and never will go broke. And if you don’t understand this, you need to learn a little Modern Monetary Theory. Governments that incur debts in currencies other than their own go broke. Governments like ours that don’t do that can’t become insolvent.
And fourth, stop looking for scapegoats to punish for our present situation. It’s easy to beat up on Government workers, but if you really want to improve the situation, how about prosecuting some frauds, putting the banksters behind bars, restoring mark to market rules to recognize the toxic assets and then taking the banks into resolution, cleaning their balance sheets, making sure they lend money to get small business going again, breaking them up into smaller institutions that are not too big too fail, and then spinning off the smaller institutions to private capital once again.
It’s these things, along with a guaranteed Government jobs program that can help our present economic situation, not putting in salary freezes on Federal Government employees.
Full Disclosure: I am not nor have I ever been a civil service employee. I have worked for the Federal Government from time-to-time as a contractor and I’ve seen the crap that Federal Workers have to put up in many, many agencies. They don’t deserve to be scapegoated when times get tough.
Refer to my post…not always. Especially if you “double up”, which many military couples and political appointees do in the DC area.
Why argue about any of this. 7434be’s post is a joke, at least I honestly hope he is kidding in his post.
The big tip off is his suggestion that government should be run like a corporation and confined to the same limitations as a corporation.
Corporations have a mandate to generate profits for it’s shareholders.
Sovereign nations have a mandate to provide for the general welfare of it’s citizens.
Corporations are destroyed via bankruptcy or acquisition.
Sovereign nations can only be destroyed by invasion/war or by coup/revolution.
Corporations are bound by the laws of the nation.
Sovereign nations create the laws.
Corporations cannot issue currency.
Sovereign nations have the exclusive power to issue currency.
And on it goes…. the differences between government and corporations are nearly endless. Suggesting that they are comparable or should be treated in a comparable manner is crazy.