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Posts Tagged ‘Federal Workers’
October 17th, 2011 at 9:29 pm
Ron Paul is Making Sense
Posted by Print

I’ve posted before on the difficulty that Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s presidential candidacy presents: while Paul is utterly at sea on foreign policy issues and too philosophically pure to countenance the type of compromise that real political progress requires, his libertarian beliefs also make him one of the best candidates in the Republican race on economic issues. Thankfully, Paul has no hope of being the nominee, but let’s hope that his “Restore America” economic plan, unveiled earlier today, has an influence on the GOP field. This is solid stuff, as the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire blog reports:

Mr. Paul does get specific when he calls for a 10% reduction in the federal work force, while pledging to limit his presidential salary to $39,336, which his campaign says is “approximately equal to the median personal income of the American worker.”  The current pay rate for commander in chief is $400,000 a year.

The Paul plan would also lower the corporate tax rate to 15% from 35%, though it is silent on personal income tax rates, which Mr. Paul would like to abolish. The congressman would end taxes on personal savings and extend “all Bush tax cuts…”

While promising to cut $1 trillion in spending during his first year, Mr. Paul would eliminate the Departments of Education, Commerce, Energy, Interior and Housing and Urban Development…

Mr. Paul would also push for the repeal of the new health-care law, last year’s Wall Street regulations law and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the 2002 corporate governance law passed in response to a number of corporate scandals, including Enron.

What’s most remarkable is that Paul — long considered an ideological outlier — is now in line with the majority of the Republican establishment (the movement was on their end, not his). With the exception of his call to abolish the federal income tax and a few of his cabinet department eliminations, these are all priorities that a Republican congress could support coming from a GOP president. That man won’t be Ron Paul … but let’s hope he’s read his plan.

November 30th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Pampered Federal Employees “Rage” at Prospect of Mere Wage Freeze?
Posted by Print

Sign of the times from today’s New York Daily News“Federal Workers Rage Over President Obama’s Two-Year Wage Freeze.”

Let’s see…  Federal employment has grown 17% since 2007, and federal employees’ total compensation has risen 37% in the past decade (compared to 9% for private sector employees), according to The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.  Further, average federal employee compensation reached $123,000 in 2009, more than twice the $61,000 earned by the average private employee.

So in what moral universe are federal workers justified in reacting to a very modest two-year wage freeze proposal with “rage” and by labeling it a “slap” when they haven’t faced the brutal layoffs, salary reductions and cuts in health coverage their private counterparts must endure?  A majority of Americans surveyed favor federal workforce reductions and salary cuts, so perhaps they should behave less like spoiled Greek, French and English rioters and instead express gratitude to American taxpayers who continue to subsidize their relative good fortune.