Obama to Cut Federal Pay Raises By 0.4% – In Other News, Federal Employees Paid Double Private Sector Equals

I just don’t think he gets it.  President Obama is touting a cut in the raises of federal employees as a way of cutting the budget deficit.  So, instead of getting a 2.4 percent raise, federal employees are getting a 2.0 percent raise.  That will save almost $20 billion.

Wow.

“The growth in federal requirements is straining the federal budget,” wrote Obama. His letter said a 2.4 percent increase would cost $19.9 billion more than the 2 percent increase he proposed in his 2010 budget.

The Congressional Budget Office last week set the fiscal year deficit at $1.6 trillion, the highest deficit ever in the post-World War II era. The Office of Management and Budget estimated the 10-year deficit to 2019 had expanded from $7 trillion to $9 trillion.

A billion is a thousand million.  A trillion is a thousand billion.  Obama is bragging that he is saving $20 billion dollars out of $1600 billion. 

Color me “not impressed.” 

It reminds me of three things.  First this video:

Secondly, this set of graphics from Pagetutor:

$1 BILLION dollars… now we’re really getting somewhere…

Next we’ll look at ONE TRILLION dollars. This is that number we’ve been hearing so much about. What is a trillion dollars? Well, it’s a million million. It’s a thousand billion. It’s a one followed by 12 zeros.

You ready for this?

It’s pretty surprising.

Go ahead…

Scroll down…

Ladies and gentlemen… I give you $1 trillion dollars…

Notice those pallets are double stacked.
…and remember those are $100 bills.

So the next time you hear someone toss around the phrase "trillion dollars"… that’s what they’re talking about.

And thirdly, this post from Cato@Liberty:

Figure 1 looks at average wages. In 2008, the average wage for 1.9 million federal civilian workers was $79,197, which compared to an average $49,935 for the nation’s 108 million private sector workers (measured in full-time equivalents). The figure shows that the federal pay advantage (the gap between the lines) is steadily increasing.

Figure 2 shows that the federal advantage is even more pronounced when worker benefits are included. In 2008, federal worker compensation averaged a remarkable $119,982, which was more than double the private sector average of $59,909.

What is going on here? Members of Congress who have large numbers of federal workers in their districts relentlessly push for expanding federal worker compensation. Also, the Bush administration had little interest in fiscal restraint, and it usually got rolled by the federal unions. The result has been an increasingly overpaid elite of government workers, who are insulated from the economic reality of recessions and from the tough competitive climate of the private sector.

It’s time to put a stop to this.

When you really look at it, $20 billion really isn’t much of a change.  Especially when federal employees are already making double the private sector equals, and some of them won’t be getting raises.  They’ll be lucky to keep their current salary and benefits.