Obama Proposes Freezing Federal Employee Pay
President Obama calls for a two-year freeze on civilian pay for federal employees from the White House, November 29, 2010.
/ CBSUpdated 2:25 p.m. Eastern Time
President Obama today proposed a two year freeze in civilian pay for federal employees that the White House says will save $2 billion in fiscal year 2011 and more than $60 billion over the next decade.
"The hard truth is getting this budget under control is going to require some broad sacrifice, and that sacrifice must be shared by employees of the federal government," he said.
"After all, small businesses and families are tightening their belts," added the president. "Their government should, too."
The freeze will apply to all civilian federal employees - including, as the White House noted, doctors who care for wondered veterans, national parks workers, Department of Defense employees and other federal workers - but not military personnel.
Congress is not covered under the proposal, though members voted to freeze their own pay at $174,000 last April.
The White House stressed that the freeze was not meant to punish or disrespect federal workers, but merely to have them do their part to help address the budget deficit. Mr. Obama said he did not reach the decision easily.
"This is not just a line item on a federal ledger," he said. "These are people's lives."
The move was embraced by top Republicans and criticized by labor leaders like AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who said in a statement that the proposal "is bad for the middle class, bad for the economy and bad for business."
American Federation of Government Employees president John Gage told the Associated Press that the move was "a slap at working people." He suggested federal employees were being made into scapegoats.
"Working people's wages are not the issue with this deficit or what is going on in our country,'' he told the AP.
Under the president's proposal, a federal worker promoted to a higher pay scale would still get a pay raise.
Congress must act to put such a freeze into effect. Much like the Republicans' earmarks ban, the move would not make a significant dent in budget deficit, which hit $1.3 trillion in the most recent budget year. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are eager to show they are serious about fiscal discipline as concerns grow about the federal debt and deficit.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at his briefing following the announcement that the freeze was not merely symbolic. Gibbs said the proposal would save $5 billion over two years, "a decent chunk of change."
Jeffrey Zients, a deputy director at the Office of Management and Budget, said on a conference call with reporters that the effort to freeze federal pay "is the first of many difficult steps ahead."
Republicans have called for federal pay freezes (and even brief furloughs for federal workers), and the bipartisan federal deficit commission is expected to call for a pay freeze when it releases its recommendations this week. (A proposal from the commission chairmen called for a three-year freeze.)
"Those of us who have been charged to lead will have to confront some very difficult decisions," Mr. Obama said, pointing to the upcoming release of the deficit commission's report. He said the decisions were ones lawmakers have "put off for a long time."
Mr. Obama also stressed other initiatives to "do more with less in the federal government," as the White House put it, including his decision to freeze salaries for senior White House officials, his proposal to extend the freeze to other top political appointees and his elimination of bonuses for political appointees.
The salary for the president of the United States has stood at $400,000 since 2001.
The appearance marked the president's his first public appearance since getting stitches in his lip from a basketball injury. He opened his remarks with a joke on how Washington is known for "sharp elbows," a reference to his injury, before adding that things have gotten somewhat "carried away."
"For those of you who are worried about my lip I should be OK, doctors have been giving me a clean bill of health," the president continued. He noted that he had played basketball since the injury with daughters Sasha and Malia, who he said "took it easy on me" because of the injury.
Mr. Obama also referenced Tuesday's planned meeting with Congressional leaders from both parties, where he said he planned to discuss his efforts to ratify the new START treaty with Russia as well as how to extend the Bush-era tax cuts. He called for cooperation, arguing that it "would be unwise" for Republicans to assume that the American people "prefer one way of thinking over another." That, he said, was not the lesson to take from the midterm elections.
"We're going to have to budge on some deeply held positions and compromise for the good of the country," he said, calling on lawmakers to "set aside the politics of the moment to make progress for the long-term."
Mr. Obama did not mention the Wikileaks documents dump that has caused diplomatic headaches for the United States around the world.
Popular in Politics
- For GOP, scandals could be an electoral plus - or minus 317 Comments
- IRS targeting overlooked biggest soft money groups
- Officials on Benghazi: "We made mistakes, but without malice" 333 Comments
- Romney condemns "breach of trust" in Washington 113 Comments
- Republicans use IRS scandal to tar Obamacare
- Where is the Benghazi cover-up Republicans promised? 406 Comments
- Ousted IRS chief: "I did not mislead" the American people 261 Comments
- Why Obama should worry that current scandals might impact 2016 242 Comments
.
As a federal employee, I only get 6 weeks of paid vacation a year!
.
How am I supposed to fight terrorism on starvation wages?
.
How am I supposed to feel like coming in to work, sitting down with coffee and donuts and after surfing the internet for a while... do my job? It's ridiculous!
.
Do you little people realize how awful it is for us federal employees to have to put our hands on your dumpy wife and squaling, snotty-nosed kids at the airport? Do you understand how boring it is for us to read your emails and listen to your phone calls?
.
We federal employees are doing ouyr best to make your uneventful, mundane little lives as safe as possible. Now do YOUR part and contact your elected representatives and DEMAND that instead of a pay freeze, we federal employees geta healthy raise!
6 weeks of paid vacation, let's see I get 4 hours a paycheck of accrued leave, so multiply that times 26 pay periods a year to arrive at a whopping 96 hours a year, almost half of what you state, so e for effort. After 15 years of employment though, it does increase to 8 hours every 2 weeks, so we peak at just shy of 5 weeks, and all you have to do is work 15 years to get there.
As someone who is an aircraft maintainer, we may be paid above starvation wages, but no where near what our civilian equivalents make.
As for coming into work and getting to do all the wonderful things you speak of, maybe one day I can dream. I get to spend most of my 9 hour shift outdoors regardless of the weather, jumping from aircraft to aircaft fixing whatever needs my attention based on the severity of what is broken, but since we have our giant staff of 3 employees doing what I do to maintain a fleet, I am sure my coffee and donuts are right around the corner. Once a month I do get to come inside and work on the testing I must have current to do my job, so I do get a brief look at a computer then, maybe if I am lucky I can stay late to work on some of it. Darn shame my contract prohibts me from being paid overtime though, so I just get to do it to keep my job.
With all of these factors, I sure am glad that freezing my very middling income will save the government $2 billion this year, when you throw that against the $1.3 trillion debt, you can clearly see we are almost there. If only the extension of the tax cuts and unemployment benefits weren't going to cost $900 billion over the next 2 years, this would have done it. Now I don't even mind the 20% increase in my health insurance costs to go against my lack of a raise.
I am not looking for any sympathy here, this situation is what it is, and if this is my part, so be it, but the amount of savings here is like trying to sell a credit card company on the fact that you are going to give them $2 a month against your $10,000 debt and expect them to be okay with it. Some people are buying it, and others think that all Federal employees are just lazy leeches on the system. All the pay freeze is going to do is make the hard workers look for other employment, and leave the people you describe in their positions, weeding out the good employees. Perhaps looking at what positions are not required, or making it easier to terminate the employees you are speaking of, would have been a much better start, instead of penalizing all of us.
Then Greenspan is succeeded by, Ben Bernanke - appointed by G.W. Bush need I inform the "Liberal Haters" that Bennake's political party is Republican also.
The monatary policies are run by the Republicans, thanks for the TRILLION$ of Debt you're given us Repugs.
Where do you get your facts from? Media Matters? MSNBC?
Here is the real data not the made up stuff,
The President proposes the budget for the government to the congress, which can amend it before passing. The U. S. Constitution in Article 1, Section 7 grants exclusive right to originate revenue related bills to the House of Representatives; the President's proposals are an indication of spending desired, but it is the House which defines the spending through the final wording of the bills.
With that in mind lets look at who REALLY ran up the deficit.
http://www.skymachines.com/US-National-Debt-Per-Capita-Percent-of-GDP-and-by-Presidental-Term.htm
Starting with the first "Bush" budget year.
date Debt % of GDP
12-31-01 $5,943,438,563,436 57.8
12-31-02 $6,405,707,456,847 60.2%
12-31-03 $7,001,312,247,818 62.8%
12/31/04 $7,596,165,867,424 64.0%
12/30/05 $8,170,424,541,313 64.6%
12/29/06 $8,680,224,380,086 64.8%
12/28/07 $9,229,172,659,218 65.6% LIBERALS 1st BUDGET
12/31/08 $10,699,804,864,612 74.1% LIBERALS 2nd BUDGET
12/31/09 $12,311,349,677,512 86.4% LIBERALS 3rd BUDGET
TODAY $14.300,000,000,000 95.0% LIBERALS 4th BUDGET
Pelosi and the Liberals took the House 4 years ago. So the last 4 budgets are on them. During the first 6 years of the Bush Presidency Debt went up from almost 6 trillion to 8.6 trillion. The percentage went 57% to 64%. Not good but strictly minor league when you compare it to the spending since the Liberals have been writing the budget.
Since the Liberals started writing budgets we have gone from 8.6 trillion to 14.3 trillion in FOUR YEARS. We have gone from 64.8% debt to GDP all the way up to over 90%. And using Obamboozler's own numbers the debt goes over the dangerous threshold of 100% of GDP within a couple of years more.
Now with these FACTS out would you mind telling me where you get your statement that blaming ObaMao for bankrupting the country "is completely disingenuous but typical fox political network propaganda!"
what part of this do you think he IS responsible for?
Answer ALL OF IT!!
THE REPEAL OF THE STUPID HEALTH CARE BILL SHOULD BE THE FIRST REDUCTION IN FEDERAL SPENDING!!!!
Next, federal spending should revert back to the Pre-Obama Pre-Pelosi 2008 budget.
Next, federal spending should be cut 5% each year until we reach a balanced budget, then we should begin to chip away at the national debt (20% of our federal budget goes to to pay the interest alone on that debt).
From the beginning of the nation until 2006, the accumulation of national debt was about $8.5 trillion. Since progressive Democrats (Nancy Pelosi) took control of Congress in 2006, they have added almost another $5 trillion to the national debt. This is insanity, and it has to stop. No more expensive new federal programs - NONE! Cut the stupid health care bill, which makes health care more expensive for the majority of Americans - while greatly expanding the federal government.
President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other progressives in Washington have damaged this nation for too long with huge federal expansions at the expense of suffering businesses and taxpayers. This irresponsible idiocy has to stop, and stop soon. WE DON'T HAVE THE MONEY!!!
With all due respect the 1 trillion dollar figure is the LIE that the Left told when ramming ObamaCare down our throats. Remember the ORIGINAL bill? It costs 1.9 trillion (Obama's own number probably very low since Obamboozler is prone to chronic lying.) and everyone freaked? Well being the sneaky Marxists that these people are the Liberals simply broke the bill up into 3 pieces. The passed the
so-called "Dr Fix" separately and then passed the main abortion that is now called ObamaCare. According to the Weekly Standard, which references the final number put out by the CBO, the REAL TOTAL cost is 2.4 Trillion. As a side note ANYTHING that the Liberal Media puts out regarding this current Regime I would personally view as dubious AT BEST.
Remember when Obamboozler said repeatedly that he would not sign any bill that added "one dime" to the deficit? Well, now that the CBO has said that the final cost has mushroomed from just under one trillion to 2.4 trillion then Obama himself should be leading the charge to repeal the bill. Run that one past him at a press conference and watch the BS that would spew forth from his (busted) lips.
http://www.fiscalcommission.gov
Take the time to read what both Alan Greenspan and David Stockman are saying about your brilliant fiscal ideas. That's just in case you two mental midgets think this is all liberal propaganda.
Would you be drafted willingly?
- and that's the cost of the Afghan War EVERY week.
And after all these YEARS, who's winning?
What did that embassy in Iraq cost? Does anybody care? Do you know?
What a crock.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, they're booking Willie for crimes against society.
Obamboozler has added 6 trillion to the national debt since he was made the Annointed One.
2.4 trillion is for the total cost of ObamaCare.This money has not been technically spent yet even though it is called for.
Then you add the 3.6 Trillion he has spent on Liberal Feel good projects. Add that all up and we could be in Afganistan for 115 years on what ObaMao has already added to the debt. However that does not include any of the other wonderful ideas floating through his Marxist skull.
Rick you never have answers or proposed solutions just disgust and resentment. What Rodeo is saying went past your head at the speed of light. He (Rodeo) was right on target and statement is profound; that is if you could take the time to really read what someone else is saying?