Okay. I'm a Democrat. I get it. We all have to accept that the budget situation and the deficit are becoming very critical. After years of unchecked spending during the Bush administration and a refusal to raise taxes, President Obama inherited the largest federal debt in history. Compounding matters, he also walked into an economy that was in almost as bad a shape as the one Franklin Delano Roosevelt inherited in 1933. Had the President paid more attention to the economy and jobs, he wouldn't have lost the House in the mid-terms. Now, he has to do the politically savvy thing and make sure that the incoming majority understands that he shares their concerns insofar as federal spending is concerned.
The most public way to do that is to address the salaries of his own employees (of which I am one). Ergo, he decided to freeze all civilian pay for the next two years as well as the locality adjustment for 2011. Of course, there are plenty of uninformed people out there that are cheering this move, as they truly believe that a government can run on auto-pilot. They don't understand what the rest of the planet has understood since the days of the Roman Republic: it takes a civil service comprised of educated professionals to run a government. The Chinese understood this so well that they started conducting civil service written examinations in the 6th century.
So it ticks me off to hear someone with a high school education point a finger at me and say that I am under-worked and overpaid. Suppose I told you that I busted my butt for 8 years in college and law school? What if I told you that I worked overnight at the Post Office for all 8 of those years? And then did an UNPAID internship in a federal agency my last semester of law school? Would you say I'm worth the base salary I make of just over $50,000.00? Because I live in Boston, I get a locality adjustment that adds $12,000.00 to my base salary. And without getting too specific about where I work, let's just say that when your boss screws you over on pay and overtime, I'm the first person you call.
But the REAL problem with the freeze is that it doesn't address the fundamental problem of the debt and the deficit. The plain fact is that when Bill Clinton left office, there was a budget surplus, and the national debt was being reduced so fast, that the national debt clock had to be unplugged, because it couldn't keep up. So the obvious question is why you would freeze the pay of a group that is likely to spend and contribute to the economic recovery with their disposable income?
This isn't to insinuate that the freeze won't help, but it's far from the solutions needed to turn around the economy. What really needs to happen are some very unpopular measures. First, the President needs to remind the American people that the debt was run up during the previous administration. The cost of the war and the largest increase in federal personnel in the history of the civil service took place when the Republicans had the House and the Senate and the White House. That is a fact that everyone is forgetting.
Second, real cost cutting has to take place, and not just in the civil service. This move will undoubtedly reduce the work force: if you are at retirement age and you were holding off so that your retirement may increase slightly over the next 2 years, you now have no incentive to stick around. So this measure will accomplish the goals the President wants to accomplish. Unfortunately, those moves are for the most part symbolic measures that won't accomplish real savings.
Third, the President needs to make people understand that the Republicans have zero interest in bipartisanship. They are only interested in taking the White House back. He needs to make sure the American people know that the bad guys are on the other side of the aisle.
The most public way to do that is to address the salaries of his own employees (of which I am one). Ergo, he decided to freeze all civilian pay for the next two years as well as the locality adjustment for 2011. Of course, there are plenty of uninformed people out there that are cheering this move, as they truly believe that a government can run on auto-pilot. They don't understand what the rest of the planet has understood since the days of the Roman Republic: it takes a civil service comprised of educated professionals to run a government. The Chinese understood this so well that they started conducting civil service written examinations in the 6th century.
So it ticks me off to hear someone with a high school education point a finger at me and say that I am under-worked and overpaid. Suppose I told you that I busted my butt for 8 years in college and law school? What if I told you that I worked overnight at the Post Office for all 8 of those years? And then did an UNPAID internship in a federal agency my last semester of law school? Would you say I'm worth the base salary I make of just over $50,000.00? Because I live in Boston, I get a locality adjustment that adds $12,000.00 to my base salary. And without getting too specific about where I work, let's just say that when your boss screws you over on pay and overtime, I'm the first person you call.
But the REAL problem with the freeze is that it doesn't address the fundamental problem of the debt and the deficit. The plain fact is that when Bill Clinton left office, there was a budget surplus, and the national debt was being reduced so fast, that the national debt clock had to be unplugged, because it couldn't keep up. So the obvious question is why you would freeze the pay of a group that is likely to spend and contribute to the economic recovery with their disposable income?
This isn't to insinuate that the freeze won't help, but it's far from the solutions needed to turn around the economy. What really needs to happen are some very unpopular measures. First, the President needs to remind the American people that the debt was run up during the previous administration. The cost of the war and the largest increase in federal personnel in the history of the civil service took place when the Republicans had the House and the Senate and the White House. That is a fact that everyone is forgetting.
Second, real cost cutting has to take place, and not just in the civil service. This move will undoubtedly reduce the work force: if you are at retirement age and you were holding off so that your retirement may increase slightly over the next 2 years, you now have no incentive to stick around. So this measure will accomplish the goals the President wants to accomplish. Unfortunately, those moves are for the most part symbolic measures that won't accomplish real savings.
Third, the President needs to make people understand that the Republicans have zero interest in bipartisanship. They are only interested in taking the White House back. He needs to make sure the American people know that the bad guys are on the other side of the aisle.
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