With Obama's announcement today of a two-year pay freeze for most civilian federal workers, and all the accompanying rhetoric of "the American people are tightening their belts, so should the government," it made me think of all of those government employees, and who they are. You know who they are? You're neighbors, you're cousins, you're mailman. They're clerks, and janitors, and security guards. They are, for the most part, everyday Americans like you and me.
Who hasn't had to tighten their belts? The top earners in this country. Yet while the GOP applauds the stagnation of wages for people like you and me, they are using every political trick and tool at their disposal to promote extending tax cuts for the rich that not only created the deficit in the first place, but if were let to expire, would go a hell of a lot further to reduce the deficit we have now, than any government pay freeze ever could.
We should let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire. Period. It's not even like it's a controversial concept. The vast majority of Americans are in favor of letting the cuts expire for the rich, including half of Republican voters!
GOP, you're up. Obama gave you the pay freeze. Now stick to your campaign promise to "listen to the American people."
The GOP suck's and most of them won't do anything good for any of us (We can bicker about what "doing good" is but one things for sure the Military Industrial Complex will likely persevere), but I'm glad the Pres. finally caved on the pay freeze. That blog failed to mention that federal employees on average made bout 30% more than their private sector counterparts. Russia, Britain, and Cuba (Communist, Socialist-Democracy, and Communist) are all slashing into State employment budgets seems like The U.S. (Democratic-Republic) should do be something similar. Pay freeze is a start.
ReplyDelete"When education and age are held constant, the entire difference in average pay between the federal and private sectors disappears."
ReplyDeletehttp://mediamatters.org/blog/201008110022
Sure but is the efficiency of the work being done reflected in these statistics? Can we confidently say the waste that exists in every government bureaucracy has an always equal counter part in the private sector? Moreover do those employed by the government create more wealth and resources than they consume? The resources used to fuel government are not invested to create more, but simply used and replaced by more resources taken from those who are creating them. Frankly if the private sector stopped producing Government would grind to a quick halt. A thing that cannot sustain itself without feeding on something productive is by any other definition a parasite, but we get a vote we call it government.
ReplyDeleteA data analyst for Microsoft is working to produce a better product so that Microsoft can be more productive and as a byproduct find itself in need of more data analysts. His/her counterpart in the department of defense is not pursing production, but rather consumption and all to often destruction. Even if they are paid the same wage the later is inherently more valuable to society than the former.