Truth about federal employee costs won't fit into a Tweet
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 12:27PM As President Barack Obama Tweeted on Wednesday, talking about matters like “Internets,” he stuck to tried and true talking points. Even the Powerwall blog at MSNBC called the Twitter Townhall “useless.”
Isn’t it challenging to tell the whole truth in 140 characters?
Federal employee pay freezes came up—bottom line on that is Obama did and did not freeze. How so?
Some escaped the ice by the timeworn standard of reclassification. In most government labor pools, those who schmooze management can get more pay even during a freeze simply by getting themselves reclassified. One way to do that is to add more employees to the ladder climber’s supervisory duties. The more you supervise, the more you make.
Various media have tackled the federal employee issue.
The Foundry blog at Heritage called the pay freeze the one that “isn’t.”
In 2010 FactCheck tackled the issue of whether federal workers are overpaid. Many of them are overpaid, but it’s amusing to read FactCheck’s long defense of the standard. FactCheck justifies those hefty paychecks by pointing out, among other things, federal workers are more educated and there are more white collar jobs in the federal arena.
Fact is federal employees have a far better benefits package and there’s one practice known as recruitment incentives that should be banned immediately. We have a job shortage in this country. Apparently the feds are the last to know.
Is any politician really capable of true government reform? Wouldn’t you think someone at the federal level would be smart enough to reduce management costs? Government agencies are famous for top heavy management types who leave the real work to the front line employees who probably are not getting fat paychecks.
Even Gawker, a site you couldn’t classify as conservative under any circumstances, pointed out the ridiculous levels of money paid to White House employees. Despite Obama’s claimed pay freeze, Gawker said compared to private sector executives’ raises, “White House workers did nearly three times as well.”
Gawker said, “But the across-the-board freeze didn't take effect until January 1, 2011, so the most recent report (which goes back to July 2010) features some eye-opening raises, like special assistant to the president for economic policy Matthew Vogel's $59,000, 82% raise to an annual salary of $130,500, or director of African American media Kevin Lewis' $36,000, 86% pay hike.”
Why would the White House need a director of African American media? Do we have a director of Caucasian American media? Asian American media?
Furthermore Why would we give a raise to anyone connected with economic policy considering the historic failure of this administration’s policy?
Meanwhile the taxpayer pays while the prez Tweets on the “Internets.”
(Commentary by Kay B. Day/July 7, 2011)