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Hypocrisy: Sen. Max Baucus' office defends his girlfriend's big pay raise by pointing to the raises others living off the taxpayer spigot got. What sympathy for the 10% of Americans suffering unemployment.
If you didn't think the Democrats in power in Washington are doing enough to spark a people's rebellion, just look at their latest shenanigans.
Congress is raising the federal debt ceiling by as much as $1.8 trillion in hopes that next October, when Republicans will be pounding them on this, voters won't remember what they were up to way back in December of 2009.
But that astronomical amount is twice what was baked into their budget resolution earlier this year. When asked about so much red ink, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., just shrugged and told the Politico: "The credit card has already been used. When you get the bill in the mail you need to pay it."
Except that it isn't Obey or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid or President Barack Obama paying for the trillions they have racked up on their American Excess card. It's you, the long-suffering American taxpayer.
The current debt ceiling of $12.1 trillion is now not enough for Congress to live under — though only a fraction of the $787 billion stimulus passed earlier this year has been spent. And a $447 billion bill for Cabinet and other agencies is set for enactment, increasing spending by as much as 10%.
How about a little belt-tightening for the federal government at a time of double-digit joblessness, you ask? None of the 7-million-plus who have lost private-sector jobs should bet their unemployment check on it.
For governmental workers, this historic recession and economic crisis has been party time. Last week, a USA Today analysis of federal government pay data found that six-figure salaries jumped from 14% of all civil servants to 19% during the first year and a half of the downturn — and that's not counting bonuses and overtime.
Delving into the details is even more galling. At the outset of the recession, for example, the Transportation Department had one employee salaried at $170,000 or more. Now, only 18 months later, it has 1,690. With fewer Americans driving or taking mass transit to work, what are those thousands of supertalented transportation bureaucrats doing that warrant so much extra cash? Counting the empty seats on the commuter trains?
Congressional support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went far beyond words. When the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight — the agency overseeing these government-sponsored enterprises — turned up irregularities in Fannie Mae's accounting and in 2004 issued what Barron's ...
Health Care: IBD recently ran an extensive series of pieces by economist Thomas Sowell highlighting government's involvement in the financial meltdown. We did it both to correct the historical record and to warn about future interventions of the same kind. The most important warning is over ...
Loyal Opposition: The president has called on Republicans to "stop trying to frighten the American people." But telling the truth about the never-ending expansion of government is not scaremongering. First, Democrats in Congress kept their colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle from a ...
The classic confrontation between Humphrey Bogart and Alfonso Bedoya in "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" is being reprised, featuring banditos from East Anglia, Penn State, Washington and the U.N. "We're Federales," they tell us. "You know, climate police. Evidence? We ain't got no evidence. We don't ...
It wasn't so long ago that Barack Obama's speeches were being hailed as "extraordinary" "rhetorical magic" (Joe Klein in Time) that should be "required reading in classrooms" (Bob Herbert in The New York Times). Pity the poor grade-schoolers who have to be on the bus at 5am for a daylong slog ...
Posted By: JAFerner(10) on 12/12/2009 | 1:42 AM ET
It seems to me that, when 17% of the people who work to pay taxes are unemployed, when our income, savings and pensions are undermined by the recent market losses and the coming inflation, government employees and elected officials at all levels, local, state and national should share in the pain by at least foregoing pay and benefit increases. Also, since layoffs would only increase the unemployment rolls, they should all accept at least a 10% pay and benefit cut in lieu of layoffs.
Posted By: EJJ(5) on 12/12/2009 | 12:10 AM ET
I work for the federal government and the 72k figure is very very close to what I make with locality pay...and you know what? It took me four years in the military, two college degrees and seven years of state government service to get here. I have earned what I make and if anyone has a problem they can STFU because I DON'T CARE.
Posted By: dwdrury(215) on 12/11/2009 | 10:51 PM ET
Unfortunately, Dumb-o-crats have changed the definition of "Public Service" to parallel the "service" a bull does to a cow.
Posted By: C400Pilot(85) on 12/11/2009 | 10:43 PM ET
Civil DisService!
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