One: Federal employees are not overpaid. Federal employees are typically paid less than private sector workers with the same education and experience.
Two: They do not all work in DC. They are all over the country. The federal government is, after all, the national government, not just a bunch of patronage jobs in the capital.
Three: There are something like five federal contract workers for every government employee. Some of them are paid pretty well, but not all. That’s a big chunk of the economy that just had the rug pulled out from under them.
Four: The services the government pays for, whether government employees or contractors, are often things the private sector can’t do and shouldn’t try to do. Those functions will disappear. Some of them, like the spy company Ed Snowden worked for, we probably won’t miss so much. Some we really will.
Five: Beyond all this there is government spending on benefits, that subsidizes low private sector wages. Food stamps, Medicaid, Earned Income Credit–all these underwrite private business that underpay their employees.
If the GOP don’t chicken out, this will be economically contractionary, on an awesome scale. This is fiscal policy that could have a directly destructive level of effect on the economy equivalent to an austere monetary policy. This is directly creating a high level of unemployment and a depression.
The backlash against the GOP is going to be so enormous, that in order to survive, they will have to win a civil war, and they will have to kill several of us for every one of them. What do you think all those memes about arming the common white man with military rifles were for? What do you think keeping bump stocks legal has been for? They will lose unless they can organize an army and outshoot disgruntled federal employees and contractors.
The Democrats refuse to give in to Trump’s behavior. Trump and young Stephen Miller are digging in. Your party’s best hope is that conservative Republicans turn on Trump; restart the government; send Miller packing; and probably impeach Trump just to be sure. Failing that, we are over the edge. There will be blood. By summer, the conservative’s movement only hope may be that you have enough of the young snots who want to be Omar Mateen or Anders Behring Breivik on your side, and that anyone can herd those cats.