# Obama freezes federal worker pay for 2 years **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 29, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301 "2010-11-29T17:43:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/181 "2010-12-01T01:08:00Z")
You keep saying that, despite many of us having proposed all kinds of real spending cuts. For instance, I’d means-test Social Security and Medicare. You can do that the same way we did it in Canada - by setting up ‘clawbacks’ based on income. For example, in Canada Social Insurance will pay you something like $914 per month as a basic income, and then you can apply for income supplements of another $1000 or so, but those are clawed back based on your retirement income. So the rich get their basic SI payment, but the poor get income equalization. So do that. Cut Social Insurance payments into two parts. Guarantee the first part, and the second part is based on income. Only the poor get it. Do the same with Medicare. Set up a sliding copayment clawback, so the more retirement income you have, the more of your own health care you have to pay. Cut the department of education’s budget in half for starters. That would just take it back to where it was about six years ago. Surely it can make do. Do the same for all the other government departments. Take them all back to 2006 levels of funding. As I recall, the U.S. wasn’t exactly starving for government then. Cut the U.S. military budget by $100 billion. Let them figure out how to do it. If all this gets you $500 billion in spending cuts, then you get your $70 billion in tax increases. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/182 "2010-12-01T01:16:17Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > $700 billion in cuts over 10 years? I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t be very difficult to do. Or did you mean something else? > > -XT 2010 discretionary non-security spending was $446 billion. The largest departments were: Health and Human Services ($84 billion), Transportation ($76 billion), Education ($46.8 billion), Housing and Urban Development ($43.6 billion) and Agriculture ($25 billion). (Source: OMB, Table S-11) [http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy11/pdf/summary.pdf](http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy11/pdf/summary.pdf) A significant chunk of the Health and Human Services budget comes goes to unemployment checks. A significant chunk of Agriculture goes to food stamps. A significant chunk of education goes towards more college loan guarantees and pell grants. There are many other expenses in the discretionary budget that shrink as the economy improves (not to mention that a lot of the discretionary budget also goes to national security (the dept of Justice for example has seen ballooning budgets as they take on more FBI agents to stop domestic terror) I believe that the baseline non-military discretionary budget is under $400 billion. If we eliminated the ENTIRE non-military discretionary budget, we would still be about a TRILLION dollars short. Our military budget is MORE than double our non-military budget at about $850 billion. So how do we close a 1.3 trillion dollar budget gap with cuts or show me where I have made a mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/183 "2010-12-01T01:19:21Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I notice that none of the righties are willing to say what they’d cut. Are you willing to desist with your precious war on Muslims, or do you just want to make sure kids can’t go to school and get health care? I am happy to bring the troops home - how about the lefties whose nominal party controlled everything for the past two years - gonna try and end those wars during the lame duck session finally? Nah - they still haven’t ended DADT. As for cuts, the good folks at CATO keep on updating their recommendations here: [http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/) Defense: $150 billion annually after being phased-in over 10 years. Commerce: $1 billion annually Agriculture: $108 billion annually Energy: $11 billion annually Education: $78 billion annually H&HS: $81 billion annually HUD: $65 billion annually Transportation: $85 billion annually So far they have listed $579 billion in annual savings in their recommendations. I would like to see the Democrats and Republicans come up with a similar list and propose it, rather than just mutter about “waste and fraud.” ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/184 "2010-12-01T01:32:12Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I notice that none of the righties are willing to say what they’d cut. Are you willing to desist with your precious war on Muslims, or do you just want to make sure kids can’t go to school and get health care? I don’t know what I’d cut. All I know is it’s a complicated issue and one thing won’t fix it. Do tax cuts that cost us $3 trillion need to be one of the first things we consider? Yep. Considering your enthusiasm for that, I thought maybe you knew what step 2, step 3, and step 4 were. It’s easy to argue platitude, but America won’t be fixed until people start thinking about the big picture, and unfortunately the Bush tax cuts aren’t it. From what I’ve read, the War on Afghanistan is only projected to cost $500 billion over the next decade, so that’s $0.5 trillion out of a $13 trillion dollar ten year deficit. I’m all for pulling out of there, and have been for a long time. So Bush tax cuts is around $$3.2 trillion, war in Afghanistan is $500 billion. What’s next? We’ve got a long way to go versus $13 trillion. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/185 "2010-12-01T01:47:28Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > If the Democrats were going to do anything about the deficit, they would have done it when they controlled Congress. They didn’t, because they weren’t. You know almost the same exact thing can be said about the Republicans but I’m sure you are about to criticize them next. > [@](#): > > Fortunately, the GOP now controls one of the houses Sorry, my mistake ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/186 "2010-12-01T01:47:38Z")
> [@Algher](#): > > I would like to see the Democrats and Republicans come up with a similar list and propose it, rather than just mutter about “waste and fraud.” Which is really the core of it. There is no shortage of ideas for cuts, and there’s even some overlap between them in the center (e.g., means-testing social security). But none of it is politically plausible for one simple reason: the number of people’s votes you lose for any significant spending cut is less than the number of votes you gain. You can overcome this with serious bipartisan cooperation (as in the UK, sort of), but it’s pretty hard to do when the GOP won’t touch anything with Obama cooties and the Democrats all whine whenever Obama makes a compromise. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/187 "2010-12-01T01:58:14Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > If the Democrats, who control the Senate and White House, come up with a bill that increases taxes and also cuts spending by the same amount, for the same period, I would support it. Then why didn’t you say so. I think that is something most people could get on board with. Heck I would even go for a $1 tax increase for every $2 in spending cuts. > [@](#): > > I will not accept any promise to cut spending later in return for tax increases now - as mentioned, we have already seen that Obama has broken promises related to the topic before. That’s fine but lets not try to pin your argument on the tanning tax. > [@](#): > > It’s the same garbage as the claim that Obamacare will cut the deficit. What is really meant is that IF we cut Medicare, we can spend the savings on new spending. > > We should have made the Medicare Sustainable Growth cuts before spending the money on Obama’s health care package. Because we definitely have the spending, but Congress has never made the MSG cuts. > > Regards, > Shodan The medicare cuts should have been part of health care reform but if you will recall, the Republicans raised holy hell about cutting the most unecessary parts of medicare and accused OBama of trying to kill the elderly… or has your memoery blocked that out. Right now, all we have accomplished is shifting costs from emergency rooms to insurance companies. We will not get medicare reform in the forseeable future and we can blame Republican rhetoric during the health care debate for that. It was disgustingly irresponsible. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/188 "2010-12-01T01:59:51Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > Why not? Why so desperate now? Unemployment is at 10%, folks are losing their unemployment benefits and all you seem to care about is some abstract notion that the deficit needs to be dealt with RIGHT NOW. I think its the fact that right now there seems to be some political will to get those cuts. When we are fat and happy we may not have the will ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/189 "2010-12-01T02:02:34Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Which would bring them closer (but still probably greater) than the government salaries for the same type of job. Not that I’m complaining. I didn’t join goverment service for the money, but rather to work environment that was less profit oriented and more science oriented. > > Mostly I am just upset over the assumptions that government workers are > > 1. over-paid > 2. under worked > 3. incompetent > > relative to private sector workers. If we really were over-paid and under worked with few requirements, one would think that government jobs would have been highly sought after, but that didn’t seem to be the case. That because government workers are generally underpaid at the high end of the GS scale and at the low end too much of the pay is in the form of benefits to really attract as many people as they would like. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/190 "2010-12-01T02:05:34Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > We will not get medicare reform in the forseeable future and we can blame Republican rhetoric during the health care debate for that. It was disgustingly irresponsible. We won’t get Medicare reform because the AARP is one of the strongest lobbying groups out there. Older folks are ALL on Medicare, they have time to write letters, and they VOTE. Don’t mess with the AARP. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/191 "2010-12-01T02:29:17Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > For instance, I’d means-test Social Security and Medicare. I agree that these are two reasonably good ideas that address social issues as well as fiscal concerns. It harms the middle class but in the spirit of shared sacrifice, I guess we can shove more of the middle class closer to poverty. Now get the Republicans in the House to pass that before we start accusing the Democrats of blocking it. > [@](#): > > Cut the department of education’s budget in half for starters. I don’t know what your Dept of Ed does but ours spends: most of its money on college access (federal work/study programs; pell grants; student loan program) most of what is left aster that is spent on programs meant to help the poor. I guess we could switch up the programs or let the states become the laboratories for coming up with the best ideas but the money would still be spent unless you wanted to stop spending money on poor kids. Most of what is left after this is No Child Left Behind. The Dept of Education has the smallest payroll of any department of government with 5000 employees. > [@](#): > > That would just take it back to where it was about six years ago. Surely it can make do. Do the same for all the other government departments. Take them all back to 2006 levels of funding. As I recall, the U.S. wasn’t exactly starving for government then. Are you talking about nominal dollars or inflation adjusted? > [@](#): > > Cut the U.S. military budget by $100 billion. Let them figure out how to do it. They’re the ones that want the cuts, why not let them propose ALL the cuts? > [@](#): > > If all this gets you $500 billion in spending cuts, then you get your $70 billion in tax increases. And if it doesn’t? Because the stuff about medicare and social security… these programs are both currently self sufficient. Shouldn’t medicare and social security cuts should go towards improving the long term solvency of medicare and social security after all we assess a separate tax for these items. Cutting 30 billion dollars in the Dept. of education and $100 billiojn in military cuts will not get you anywhere close to a balanced budget. Or are you proposing that we take money from self sufficient programs like medicare and social security and and use them to plug up the deficit instead of using medicare cuts to imrpove the solvency of the medicare program? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/192 "2010-12-01T02:44:33Z")
> [@Algher](#): > > I am happy to bring the troops home - how about the lefties whose nominal party controlled everything for the past two years - gonna try and end those wars during the lame duck session finally? > > Nah - they still haven’t ended DADT. > > As for cuts, the good folks at CATO keep on updating their recommendations here: > > [http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/) > > Defense: $150 billion annually after being phased-in over 10 years. > Commerce: $1 billion annually > Agriculture: $108 billion annually > Energy: $11 billion annually > Education: $78 billion annually > H&HS: $81 billion annually > HUD: $65 billion annually > Transportation: $85 billion annually > > So far they have listed $579 billion in annual savings in their recommendations. I would like to see the Democrats and Republicans come up with a similar list and propose it, rather than just mutter about “waste and fraud.” Dept of Agriculture has a budget of $25 billion according to [http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy11/pdf/summary.pdf](http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy11/pdf/summary.pdf) How do you cut $108 billion form a $25 billion budget? What am I missing? $78 Billion for Dept of education; $11 billion for dept of energy; $81 Billion for dept of health and human services; $65 billion for HUD and $85 Billion for transportation? You realize that is their entire budget (and in some cases more than their entire budget). In fact its almost the entire non-military discretionary budget. So now that you have left government with basically the departments of defense, treasury, state and justice. Where do you get the other $800 billion? Wait I mean $650 billion because we trimmed $150 billion form the military. How do you balance the budget? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/193 "2010-12-01T02:48:23Z")
> [@Algher](#): > > We won’t get Medicare reform because the AARP is one of the strongest lobbying groups out there. Older folks are ALL on Medicare, they have time to write letters, and they VOTE. Don’t mess with the AARP. If the Republicans stood shoulder to shoulder with the Democrats and acted like adults when Democrats tried to cut medicare instead of using it as an opportunity to bash the Democrats over cutting medicare, then we could have reasonable discussions about it, instead we got talk of death panels and hysterics of cutting some of the waste in medicare. BTW the AARP supported health care reform and cutting medicare because they know that controlling medicare costs are critical to maintaining the program. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/194 "2010-12-01T02:49:49Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Which is really the core of it. There is no shortage of ideas for cuts, and there’s even some overlap between them in the center (e.g., means-testing social security). But none of it is politically plausible for one simple reason: the number of people’s votes you lose for any significant spending cut is less than the number of votes you gain. You can overcome this with serious bipartisan cooperation (as in the UK, sort of), but it’s pretty hard to do when the GOP won’t touch anything with Obama cooties and the Democrats all whine whenever Obama makes a compromise. Obama didn’t always have cooties. The Republicans have positioned themselves into a corner where they cannot go along with anything Obama proposes. I mean he froze federal salaries and it gets poohpoohed by Republicans all over TV. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/195 "2010-12-01T02:55:49Z")
> [@Algher](#): > > I am happy to bring the troops home - how about the lefties whose nominal party controlled everything for the past two years - gonna try and end those wars during the lame duck session finally? > > Nah - they still haven’t ended DADT. The Democrats aren’t my party and I have no love for them. The US, unfortunately, has no political left wing in its government. That’s another huge reason the country is turning into dogshit. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/196 "2010-12-01T02:59:19Z")
The Republicans would never agree to means test Social Security and Medicare. They call it “class warfare.” That’s not a political possibility. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/197 "2010-12-01T03:05:01Z")
> [@Taters](#): > > And finally, I’ve always paid a “little” something for my healthcare. I guess five hundred bucks a month is just a drop in the bucket to you.:rolleyes: Oh, and that doesn’t include the extra I’d need to pay for my dental and vision, if I didn’t want to spend thousands out of pocket on that too. Co pays, etc as well. Just like the private sector. Hmmmm…how about that… > I don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for us, but knock it off with the fed bashing. There are good employees and there are bad employees, just like in private sector. Um…your plan sounds better than mine so far. A little more than $500/month, no dental or vision covered…you were saying? I sense you’re feeling picked on and abused as a Federal employee. What you should stop doing is painting us all with that broad brush of just wanting to kick around Federal employees, boom or bust. I come from a family where half the folks in my family were Federal employees at one time or another, at least two of them were Federal employees their entire lives. I’ve certainly never felt like “bashing” Federal employees. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/198 "2010-12-01T03:13:29Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I think the federal employee response to that is “what sort of raises and bonuses did you get when times were fat?” If it wasn’t for the fact that I was promoted 8 times over my career, my annual raises would not have kept pace with inflation. Some years, the raise has been “0%.” Federal employees get raises when they go up grades as well. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/199 "2010-12-01T03:39:17Z")
Thank you, **Sam** , for actually proposing some spending cuts. And there is nothing in that list that bothers me in the least, save perhaps the Dept of Education funding (would depend on where the cuts are coming from, but I’m not that worried about it). The interesting thing is that of the items you listed, most of them are significantly more likely to be supported by Democrats (means-testing social insurance and military cuts in particular). Only the Education cuts are likely to be supported by the GOP. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301/200 "2010-12-01T03:42:26Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > The Republicans would never agree to means test Social Security and Medicare. They call it “class warfare.” That’s not a political possibility. Maybe they would if the Democrats would put up a few of their own sacred cows, and both parties presented a united front for a change. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-freezes-federal-worker-pay-for-2-years/562301.md?page=11)