Some Republicans Say Pay Cut For Federal Employees

Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) said on Tuesday that the federal payroll has grown by an additional 141,000 federal workers, not counting Census employees, postal workers and uniformed members of the military, since Barack Obama took office. Now Obama wants to hire 125,000 more workers.

Obama's plan is to give a 1.4 percent across-the-board pay raise to 2.1 million federal workers next fiscal year.  A USA Today analysis last week showed that the number of federal workers earning $150,000 or more per year has doubled since Obama took office. Chaffetz, the top Republican on the subcommittee with oversight of the federal workforce who is likely to become the panel's next chairman, wants a 10 percent across-the-board pay cut.

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union for federal employees and a staunch supporter of the Obama, rejects the notion that federal workers make more than their private-sector counterparts.  AFGE spokeswoman Christine Erling said AFGE "vigorously opposes any efforts to freeze federal hiring and cut federal employees' pay."  "We have made and will continue to make our opposition to these types of punitive proposals known to the Obama administration as well as to the Congress," Erling said.

Labor was critical in mobilizing voters and getting them to cast ballots for Obama in 2008 but turnout dropped in the 2010 midterm in part because many union workers didn't see Obama go to bat for their initiatives, said Matrick Masters, a national labor expert and a professor of business and political science at Wayne State University.  Masters also said, "The calculation Obama has to make is how much he wants to bring that swing vote back."

Obama will bankrupt America to placate the unions and to get the union vote.  At a time when many Americans are losing their jobs he wants to give raises to union members and hire more of them.  He needs them to have any chance at re-election in 2012.

Representative Chaffetz is headed in the right direction, just not far enough.  The people hired since Obama took office need to be terminated.  We can’t afford them.  Then reduce all federal pay by 10% and all benefits by 10%.  That will be a start to reigning in the federal government.

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