Quote :

"Bowing to Republican political pressure and growing budget concerns, President Obama will announce a two-year pay freeze for civilian federal workers Monday, according to administration sources. The freeze applies to all federal employees -- including civilian employees of the Defense Department, and will not impact step increases or bonuses for federal workers, according to sources. Further details will be announced by Obama at 11:35 a.m., the White House said. Obama signaled a willingness to consider pay and hiring freezes as a way to rein in government spending during an October interview with The Washington Post. The administration had examined pay levels, "and the data we get back indicates that high-skilled workers in government are slightly underpaid. Lower-skilled workers are slightly overpaid relative to the private sector," Obama said."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/11/obama_announces_pay_freeze_for.html?hpid=topnews

This is going to generate some heat . . .

11/29/2010 11:05:05 AM

riots in the streets!

they gonna take our shit!

11/29/2010 11:07:22 AM

Something does not sit right with me about that first sentence though. "Republican plitical pressure?" From who? The 112th Congress has not yet been seated and he'll still control the Senate.

Also, "bowing to (insert anything here) pressure" seems to imply that this was a function of brute force instead of a reaction to shifting political winds. Agree or disagree with his decision, the first sentence is poor journalism.


Apparently so does the WaPo, the site was just updated:

Quote :

"Updated 11:08 a.m. ET Bowing to growing budget concerns and months of Republican political pressure on federal pay and benefits, President Obama will announce a two-year pay freeze for civilian federal workers Monday, the White House said."

[Edited on November 29, 2010 at 11:16 AM. Reason : .]

11/29/2010 11:14:47 AM

good move by the president.

i agree with your point Cash.

11/29/2010 11:33:28 AM

most of the complaints will come from the crybabies who have been expecting the government to wave a magic wand and fix their problems.

The smart ones will realize this is a good thing because a little sacrifice from everyone is the only way things will improve.

11/29/2010 11:37:32 AM

This is actually a few suffering pay freezes (why not pay cuts?) to improve things for everyone else.

11/29/2010 11:52:55 AM

Not that this isn't a good idea, but aren't:

Quote :

"but does not apply to military personnel, government contractors, postal workers, members of Congress, Congressional staffers, or federal court judges and workers. "

A sizable chunk of federal employees?

11/29/2010 12:42:01 PM

USPS is not technically a government entity. It's actually a profit making company with federal ties.

Not sure why this wouldn't apply to the rest of the non-military personnel though.

11/29/2010 12:46:59 PM

military personnel - defense cuts are coming, but this is going to be a hard sell politically with the current operational tempo

government contractors - Their income is set by the contracting company, not the government. The government can chose to hire fewer contractors, but they exercise no control over what a contracting company decides to pay their private employees.

members of Congress - I'm shocked

Congressional staffers - shocked again!

federal court judges and workers - could be any number of reasons for this

11/29/2010 1:22:19 PM

Quote :

"Congress is not covered by Obama's order, but lawmakers voted last April to freeze their pay, with the House and Senate opting to forgo an automatic $1,600 annual cost-of-living increase. House members and senators now are paid $174,000 a year. Their last pay increase was $4,700 a year at beginning of 2009."

from http://www.wral.com/business/story/8695573/

[Edited on November 29, 2010 at 1:46 PM. Reason : did find that little diddy]

[Edited on November 29, 2010 at 1:47 PM. Reason : +]

11/29/2010 1:43:13 PM

And it expires right after the next election, just like the freeze on discretionary spending.

Crafty.

11/29/2010 1:51:33 PM

Quote :

"they exercise no control over what a contracting company decides to pay their private employees"

They exercise control over what they pay the contractors.

11/29/2010 1:54:41 PM

These employees should riot

But Americans are subdued wimps so this'll slide by with no incident

Meanwhile Europeans continue to show us up

11/29/2010 2:13:08 PM

Quote :

"These employees should riot"

If you don't like the game, take your marbles and leave. As such, if the workers don't like working for an uncaring government, they should quit.

11/29/2010 2:14:46 PM

Quote :

"If you don't like the game, take your marbles and leave. As such, if the workers don't like working for an uncaring government, they should quit."

How about fuck yourself you Pharisee

They should take their marbles and shove it down their employers' throats.

[Edited on November 29, 2010 at 2:16 PM. Reason : .]

11/29/2010 2:15:27 PM

Quote :

"Meanwhile Europeans continue to show us up"

Because mass property damage to show your displeasure at no longer being able to get free money from your fellow citizens is preferable to having a government that tries to control its spending a little?

11/29/2010 2:27:31 PM

I didn't get a raise last year either. Boo hoo.

11/29/2010 2:29:22 PM

Meh, if you don't like the idea of no pay increase for the next few years then you should quit. Hell, a large portion of the private sector already went through pay freezes.

It's unconscionable that government workers didn't feel the same heat despite massive deficit spending and lower tax revenue. This should have happened sooner.

11/29/2010 2:30:25 PM

Quote :

"These employees should riot "

grow up

^exactly. Or laid off, or pay CUTS. Our federal employees either need pay cuts or layoffs.

You think Europe is ahead of us? How many public employees have they laid off or have plans to? In that aspect I agree. haha

[Edited on November 29, 2010 at 2:36 PM. Reason : .]

11/29/2010 2:34:49 PM

You people are shitty excuse for Americans

You'd be loyalists telling the revolutionaries to "grow up"

Quote :

"You think Europe is ahead of us? How many public employees have they laid off or have plans to? In that aspect I agree. haha"

Apparently regular people should pay for the capers of the financial sector
Gotta love how military spending isn't being touched lmao, gotta send our boys out to make sure our companies can GET. DAT. CHEDDAR.

[Edited on November 29, 2010 at 3:33 PM. Reason : .]

11/29/2010 3:30:47 PM

I guess you dont realize our govt is spending far more than they bring in. Cuts have to be made, even military cuts. But saying to riot over a pay freeze sounds as stupid to americans as rioting for increasing the retirement age by 1-2 yrs.

11/29/2010 3:39:56 PM

^^right. the best way to get rid of corporate socialism is to increase the size of the fed.

[Edited on November 29, 2010 at 3:43 PM. Reason : ^^]

11/29/2010 3:43:39 PM

Quote :

"I guess you dont realize our govt is spending far more than they bring in. Cuts have to be made, even military cuts. But saying to riot over a pay freeze sounds as stupid to americans as rioting for increasing the retirement age by 1-2 yrs."

yep fold up the foreign military bases and bring our boys home. If that means we don't have a need for them all then let them do something productive instead

[Edited on November 29, 2010 at 3:47 PM. Reason : (no longer clear on the exact figure so I won't speak as if I know it)]

11/29/2010 3:45:52 PM

Quote :

"They exercise control over what they pay the contractors."

The government can exercise what it pays for a contract, but they pay the company that employs the contractors. They don't pay the individuals themselves.

Quote :

"But Americans are subdued wimps so this'll slide by with no incident"

Yes because the less than 1% of US citizens who work for the Federal Government = Americans

Quote :

"yep fold up the foreign military bases and bring our boys home. If that means we don't have a need for them all then let them do something productive instead"

There is a solid argument for this, but don't confuse military spending with overall military size. The DoD, personnel wise, remains a fairly small force. Even at the height of the surge Active Duty uniformed services comprised <50% of the total uniformed force in Iraq and Afghanistan. AD, Guard and Reserve combined constitute less than 50% of our total footprint in Iraq. The majority of support work is being done by contractors both foreign and US based.

11/29/2010 4:08:50 PM

Not all of the stuff the DoD spends its money on is bad; some of it ends up producing valuable research on surprising subjects, but only by accident. They mostly give a fuck about weaponry and we need to stop fucking researching more weaponry.

Excellent point though I oversimplified like a mofucka. Still all of these contracts would be unnecessary if we weren't maintaining a global military presence (empire)

[Edited on November 29, 2010 at 4:11 PM. Reason : .]

11/29/2010 4:10:31 PM

we ain't an empire. if we were an empire we'd be getting something for our money.

[Edited on November 29, 2010 at 4:19 PM. Reason : a]

11/29/2010 4:19:16 PM

Quote :

"we ain't an empire. if we were an empire we'd be getting something for our money."

We are, we get the table scraps. The serious spoils go to the oligarchy while their poor hatchet-men crusade on the internet (evidence: this forum)

11/29/2010 4:25:14 PM

Why should Fed employees riot? Or, should we just keep the increases as planned and let the taxpayer riot?

11/29/2010 4:57:05 PM

Quote :

"Why should Fed employees riot? Or, should we just keep the increases as planned and let the taxpayer riot?"

Taxpayers in this country won't riot. Workers with legitimate reasons to riot don't, and you think some taxpayer's gonna do something LOL

11/29/2010 4:58:51 PM

I'm drawing a blank on why freezing an automatic merit-less pay increase would trigger riots?

11/29/2010 5:04:03 PM

Quote :

"The freeze applies to all Executive Branch workers -- including civilian employees of the Defense Department, but does not apply to military personnel, government contractors, postal workers, members of Congress, Congressional staffers, or federal court judges and workers."

The people who need to tighten their belt the most get fed more. lol

By the way Chance whether you have a point or not I don't care, go fuck yourself. I have zero interest interacting with you at all. Let somebody else pick up your points for you and I'll address them instead.

[Edited on November 29, 2010 at 5:10 PM. Reason : .]

11/29/2010 5:08:25 PM

Obama is such a socialist. Until he tries to reign in government spending. Still a muslim, though.

11/29/2010 5:14:19 PM

Rofl, are you fearing that I'm trolling you, or setting you up to be trolled, or what?

I'm asking the most simple of questions and you just had a high school hissy fit? Holy fuck dude, you should probably start considering suicide because it seems like you're less and less capable of dealing with real life.

11/29/2010 5:15:50 PM

It's not that, I just have no interest in you whatsoever. You've demonstrated on this website over the course of however many years of pathetic meltdowns that you're a waste of time. Now run along you fucking mongrel I'm through with you. You can pretend what you said affected my response rather than me noticing your screen name is "Chance" if that helps patch up your shriveled, bald man ego if you'd like.

Now that I've said that I'm not spending another second on you, so run along you fucking schmuck and waste somebody else's time instead

11/29/2010 5:19:32 PM

Quote :

"Apparently regular people should pay for the capers of the financial sector"

Just so we can clear this up ... is there anyone here that thought the corporate bailouts were a good idea? Kris maybe but he's always been insane. Anyone else?

Quote :

"Gotta love how military spending isn't being touched lmao, gotta send our boys out to make sure our companies can GET. DAT. CHEDDAR. "

Well, if one did believe that the government employees should and would riot over a pay freeze, it makes sense not to freeze the pay of the guys with the guns and the tanks. Still think they should have frozen that pay though.

[Edited on November 29, 2010 at 5:22 PM. Reason : asdf]

11/29/2010 5:22:05 PM

feezing pay is just another bullshit no effort platitude. it wont shrink the size of the fed. it wont fix waste or abuse. (lmao they'll probably use the "savings" to hire more people lololololol).

theres no chance of fixing the fed. keep on hoping for change.

11/29/2010 5:27:50 PM

Quote :

"Well, if one did believe that the government employees should and would riot over a pay freeze, it makes sense not to freeze the pay of the guys with the guns and the tanks. Still think they should have frozen that pay though."

Should have frozen all of it if any of it. This is why the politically disadvantaged folks that got left in the cold should get pissed

11/29/2010 5:28:58 PM

Quote :

"government contractors - Their income is set by the contracting company, not the government. The government can chose to hire fewer contractors, but they exercise no control over what a contracting company decides to pay their private employees."

Agreed. This focus on the pay of government contractors is pointless since it's determined by negotiations between the Federal government and the contracting firms; it would probably cost more in time and labor to renegotiate them than any savings you'd score. The question regarding government contractors shouldn't be how much we're paying them but instead how many of them we have. The Federal bureaucracy can pretty much dump them on a whim, and I think it's a reasonable thing to do. From what I gather, DoD has already announced it.

11/29/2010 5:29:52 PM

Quote :

"They should take their marbles and shove it down their employers' throats."

Kinda like the air traffic controllers 30 years ago, right?

11/29/2010 6:58:56 PM

Quote :

"It's not that, I just have no interest in you whatsoever."

Why would you have an interest in me regardless? It matters not who posted something, only if the content is worth replying to. When I see a post attached to your name I don't think "Oh, it's the angry liberal again, spouting off his anti capitalism pro big government screeds, trying harder every day to become a caricature of himself" or "oh, there is the academic again reminding us how he is so much more intellectual than us" and when called on that telling us "dude, Im just wasting time on you idiots". No, I don't do any of that. But hey man, if you can't rationally respond to a critique of your argument that government employees should riot for pay freezes (when their private sector counter parts got a pay cut....to $0) then I can't force you.

Keep spazzing out though, it's entertaining. And don't forget to remind us how we're a waste of your intellectual time while you keep coming back anyway because that irony is just delicious.

11/29/2010 7:02:24 PM

Wow, that was a scathing rebuke.

Yeah, I don't know what recourse government employees have. Frankly I think a thorough culling of most government agencies is needed. Major fat trimming needs to be done, jobs should be eliminated and pay cuts should probably be enacted. A pay freeze is very, very mild compared to what should happen.

11/29/2010 7:05:35 PM

Quote :

" Well, if one did believe that the government employees should and would riot over a pay freeze, it makes sense not to freeze the pay of the guys with the guns and the tanks. Still think they should have frozen that pay though."

Seriously? We already got our lowest pay raise in decades, they're about to overhaul our retirement system in a horrible fashion, combat pay is now pro-rated, and a great deal of people are deployed more than they're actually home, oh and for the troops overseas, the dollar value keeps decreasing against the euro, pound, and yen.

I'm not complaining about that, but seriously, freezing our pay is a horrible idea.

11/29/2010 7:09:13 PM

Yeah, in a time when we actually are using our military a lot it makes very little sense to decrease the incentive to join or stay in our totally volunteer army. Furthermore, most military personnel make very little in pay. It's one of the worst paying jobs you can get.

11/29/2010 7:13:08 PM

Quote :

"I'm not complaining about that, but seriously, freezing our pay is a horrible idea."

Yeah you're right we should just put half of you out of work

11/29/2010 7:17:42 PM

Agreed.

Shut down most of our overseas bases, decrease the size of the standing army, cut back on the number of naval vessels, withdraw troops from multinational peace keeping operations, etc.

Our military is vastly bloated, but what we're paying the troops is not the main problem. Hell, for what they do and what they risk they are underpaid. Id' rather they paid more and thereby attracted more desirable candidates.

11/29/2010 7:22:08 PM

What a disgrace that Congress won't see a pay freeze too. Fucking unbelievable.

11/29/2010 7:36:44 PM

Quote :

"I'm not complaining about that, but seriously, freezing our pay is a horrible idea."

Let's have some perspective here. I know guys 1 yr in the DoD as a civilian making the same pay (not combat) as a Marine Major with 10 yrs experience. Think about that for just a second. I think the civilians can stand to have their pay frozen for a couple years. Remember, while the government civilians were 100% guaranteed not to face any stress related to getting laid off while the economy burned, million of their private sector counterparts weren't so lucky.

11/29/2010 7:39:18 PM

I think that Congress should take an immediate pay cut. A US Congressman gets paid 174,000. An E-9 with 25 years of experience gets paid 106k, an O-6 with the same amount of experience gets paid 160k.

The guy that thought Guam could capsize and sink, makes more.

Fuck that shit.

11/29/2010 8:05:26 PM

Quote :

"Taxpayers in this country won't riot. Workers with legitimate reasons to riot don't, and you think some taxpayer's gonna do something LOL"

OK, in fairness, the closest thing we've had to a popular revolt has been savaged by much of the media, the political establishment, the academic world and popular culture. Zero focus was given to any merit their points might have and, instead all the energy these organizations had was dedicated towards discrediting not the ideas, but the legitimacy of the Tea Party.


Not to say that there isn't legitimate debate to be had, but the message was essentially, "shut up and accept what we tell you is good for you."

11/29/2010 8:33:21 PM

I don't know where this idea that Federal government civilian employees are overpaid came from. If you compare their salaries to their peers, you're talking at least a 10-20% pay cut. Living here in DC, I have yet to meet anyone who went to the Federal government and received a pay increase. The general rule of thumb is government job = 10% cut in salary. Yes, maybe their salaries seem high compared to the national average, but that makes up for the insane cost of living here in the nation's capital (where the average salary for many of the surrounding counties is $90k+). Their not bad salaries, but they're not going to win comparing pay alone.

I wonder if the reason the President didn't freeze Congressional salaries is because he doesn't have the power to do so. If that's the case, Congress should not just freeze their own salaries but all their staff members for an equal period of time.

In case any of you actually want to see the salary tables, here are the links:

DC:
http://www.opm.gov/oca/10tables/html/dcb.asp

Raleigh Metro:
http://www.opm.gov/oca/10tables/html/ra.asp

If you need equivalencies for the GS scale to experience:
http://main.opm.gov/qualifications/standards/group-stds/Gs-admin.asp

Note a college new hire starts either as a GS-5 or a GS-7 (with a high GPA) in DC starts from $34k to $52k which is virtually unlivable in this area. GS-9 is about a Masters, and GS-11 is a PhD. Salaries aren't bad but they aren't great either compared to the private sector. Note a lot of people never make GS-14 or GS-15 in their careers; those are the sort of SME level or director types who have 15-20+ years of experience.

11/29/2010 8:40:10 PM