GOP budget resolution calls for pay freeze through 2015

[lanlady]

Source: Government Executive

The chairman of the House Budget Committee on Tuesday called for a federal pay freeze through 2015 and a slowdown in government hiring as part of an overall effort to cut trillions of dollars in spending during the next decade.

The GOP's fiscal 2012 budget resolution recommends a freeze on federal pay through 2015, and an attrition policy that permits the government to hire only one new employee for every three workers who retire. The resolution estimates that by 2014, the hiring reform will produce a 10 percent reduction in the federal workforce.

"Federal workers deserve to be compensated for their important work, but pay levels, pay increases and benefit packages need to be reformed in line with the private sector," the resolution said. President Obama and Congress agreed on a two-year pay freeze for federal workers, which took effect in January.

Read more: http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0311/040511l2.htm

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Here we have it, the latest salvo in the GOP war on government employees.

[MichiganVote]

1. But of course, it will exclude the leaching legislators and their staff, the entire executive branch

and the Judicial branch--except for the support workers. All of this is such a joke.

[lanlady]

3. The GOP puts an automatic rider on all legislation that they sponsor

It says "present company excluded."

[Drale]

4. I think they have a rubber stamp that says that

[KansDem]

6. Of course...freezing the pay of "the best and the brightest" might mean they'll quit public service

...for work in the private sector and we'd lose out on their wisdom and insight...

...do I need :sarcasm:?

[lark]

2. Does this include them?

If not, it shows the world what total assholes populate the Repug Bizzarro world.

[Zorra]

5. The GOP has got to go. They totally suck at governing. End of story. nt

[KansDem]

7. They're not "governing;" they're "ruling."

Molly Ivins said it best, "The Republicans don't want to govern; they want to rule."

[Iliyah]

8. rule aka dictate

to the little people. Have their hands all over female bodies dictating how she should lay down when ever the master beckons and gawd forbid if a female is forced b/c they won't believe her anyways, and gawd forbid she gets knocked up b/c if so, y'know she obviously wanted to be "r", and so on and on.

[Sherman A1]

10. Precisely

:toast:

[NeoConsSuck]

9. And yet

never a word about the elephant in the room, military defense (actually military offense) spending. No wonder our biggest export is weapons, wars and death.

[Psephos]

13. You're right...but you're less right every day.

I would love to see the Pentagon budget halved. However, even if the Pentagon budget were eliminated, it would still leave the US with close to a trillion dollars of deficit per year, and rising. So it's not a fix, just part of a bigger, and more painful, solution.

The major threat to future solvency comes from Medicare (and to a smaller extent, Medicare), Social Security (because repayment of the multitrillion "trust fund" borrowings must come from the general budget), and interest on the debt. Historically, the US has paid about 6% on debt. Right now it's paying closer to 2%. A return just to historical levels would cause bankruptcy or its equivalent, a cratered economy.

Inflation is here already, and growing. The Treasury's cost of borrowing will go up, and soon. Only the "purchase" of Treasury debt by the Fed with fake money (through the Quantitative Easing Phase II program) has been keeping the interest rate down...but all the rubes who historically have bought US debt are starting to catch on. The truth is, already, no one wants US debt except the Fed, which is buying because it knows it's either them or nobody.

Once the Treasury bond market flips, the interest rate increase will be sharp, and the damage lasting.

[texshelters]

11. This budget is a

further rejection of the people for corporate tax cuts.

http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/the-four-horsemen-of-the-budgetopolypse-if-republicans-were-planning-your-household-budget/

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[qanda]

12. This will work if they also freeze the amount gas, electric, food, clothes, etc can go up

For the same amount of time. The Republicans are bad but not as bad as the Democrats, if they let this happen.