Except that no one got a wage cut freeze when Clinton wasted the nation’s time on that stuff.
I’m an Obot and I’m all about baking cookies and standing by my man when we’ve got a competent Democratic president, but this is bullshit and it won’t satisfy the teatards anyway.
pto892
It’s a pay freeze and not a wage cut, but I get the larger point. Still I expect the republicans will counter with a call for a 10% pay cut for federal workers.
Lolis
Yeah, it is bullshit. As a state worker in Texas, I am thrilled my first raise goes into effect December 1, just before the legislature is back in session in January.
GregB
Time for a call for a 20% reduction in Congressional staff.
JPL
Yup, it’s bullshit. Clinton did give Wall Street what it wanted and that didn’t work out so well. Clinton did promote NAFTA and outsourcing and that didn’t work out so well.
Truth of the matter it doesn’t matter what Clinton did compared to Obama at this point. I’m so disgusted, that it’s going to be difficult to vote for him again.
Nick
How is a wage freeze a wage cut?
I suport him here, sorry. Everybody else has been getting a pay freeze for years. Why shouldn’t federal employees get one too? There’s no inflation and the government needs money. Just another round of lefties going into hysterics over stupid shit. Not everything is some sort of attempt to “satisfy teatards,” maybe it’s just sane fiscal policy.
cyntax
Well obviously what we need right now is some timely action to cool down this over-heated economy. Oh wait, we’re in recession…
…tell me agin why we want Federal employees to have less money to spend?
cleek
saves $2B.
AKA: one day’s worth of DoD funding.
debbie
Neither side particularly bitched when Nixon imposed wage freezes in 1971. That must have been back when people put their country/community above their own self-interests.
Nick
@cyntax:
Tell me again how giving them a raise means they’ll sped it, but giving them a tax cuts means they won’t.
Nate
The best part is that when he eventually caves on ending the Bush tax cuts for high earners (and you know he will), he’s essentially telling public servants their raises were sacrificed so the super-wealthy could get super-wealthier.
What fun that will be.
PeakVT
$2 billion = 0.18% of the project $1.1 trillion dollar FY2011 deficit.
cyntax
@cleek:
Or ~15% of Goldman Sachs’ bailout (IIRC they got 13 billion).
taylormattd
Exactly.
Corner Stone
@Nick:
The article states he did it to pre-empt the Republicans and because it’s a sop to the “sky-high deficit” crowd.
It saves $2billion for FY 2011. On the backs of people not making a whole hell of a lot of money.
Midnight Marauder
It’s mainly infuriating because it completely undermines the ability to change the greater narrative about the economic situation currently facing this country. It’s almost as specious an issue/symbolic gesture as all of the blather about banning earmarks. And it leads to dumb comments like this from the President of The United States:
Which does not happen in any substantive manner with a federal employee wage freeze. Not to mention that if this is a negotiating tactic, it is outrageously self-defeating and imbecilic.
This is straight up bullshit, no doubt.
LarsThorwald
I am a federal employee, and I will take the two-year pay freeze if President Obama backs up this shared sacrifice talk by pressing on letting the extra tax cuts for those making more than $250,000 expire.
If not, then he is full of shit, and I will remember this day in two years.
Corey
@Nick:
“I suport him here, sorry. Everybody else has been getting a pay freeze for years. Why shouldn’t federal employees get one too? There’s no inflation and the government needs money.”
Boehner-esque reasoning at its finest.
numbskull
@Nick:
Are they getting an ADDITIONAL tax cut?
Might want to pull the pole out and re-think that, Sparky.
cyntax
@Nick:
People can’t spend what the don’t have. Even if they save it, that’s still good for the country because we’re repairing our balance sheets. It’s a paltry 2 billion, it’s not sane fiscal policy. It’s punitive, and it’s targeted at little people.
Your bucket’s got a real leaky bottom on this one, sorry.
General Stuck
The natives will feast on this, nevermind it would take an act of congress to do, which will never happen. Jeebus, Obama said something politically strategery. Posturing, via the triangle. Now everyone in unison, Obama SELLOUT! POUTRAGE! There now, all better ain’t it.
And what Nick said.
Fuck it, I’m going to listen to Christmas music and think good thoughts. You fuckers are a downer, at least a lot of you are.
Punchy
The V-chip sounds like something you could buy in a Adam and Eve catalog.
Maude
@Nick:
One thing it does is remove Federal workers from the Republican outrage over their pay and working that up to the hilt.
The Republicans would get the propaganda up and running to the point where people would demand that Federal workers have a large pay cut.
A lot of private jobs aren’t seeing wage hikes.
JPL
Since it only includes the executive office, can we count on Congress to freeze their salaries and those of their staff?
Might be time to write my Congressman.
jayackroyd
@pto892:
They’ll call for a hiring freeze. Cuts by attrition. In an environment where many jobs have been replaced by contractors.
Martin
Um, not to state the obvious here – but how many spending/tax measures can the President implement unilaterally?
Cutting defense isn’t a WH issue – it’s a Congressional issue.
Cutting/raising taxes isn’t a WH issue – it’s a Congressional issue.
Federal employee pay, that’s one of the few things he can do. I agree it’s bullshit – but it’s up to Congress to move the big dollars.
numbskull
@LarsThorwald: I’m not on board with even that tit-for-tat thinking. The initial stimulus was too small. There are only a handful of things that the Exec can do at this point to make up for that. This comes under the heading of “exactly the opposite” of stimulatory policy.
But what do I know. I’m just a …
Joseph Nobles
A wage freeze is a wage cut the same way a budget freeze or slow in growth is a budget cut and the same way a tax cut less than expected is a tax hike. Forget about it, DougJ, it’s Washington.
Captain Haddock
In what dictionary does “hope” or “change” mean complete lack of imagination?
bkny
once again mr hopey changey feeds the gop meme that federal workers are overpaid…
DougJ
@pto892:
It’s a cut relative to inflation, but yeah, you’re right, I should have said freeze. I’ll fix it.
Face
@Punchy: So does “school uniforms”.
mantis
but this is bullshit
Why is this bullshit?
I haven’t gotten a raise in two years, due to the crap economy. Inflation and core CPI are extremely low these days. Why do federal employees need raises?
and it won’t satisfy the teatards anyway.
So what? Nothing ever will. “Satisfying the teatards” shouldn’t even enter the equation. Ever.
Blue Neponset
@cleek: How many Presidential trips to India is that?
This is a really dumb idea. I don’t think we are going to have a President who is a champion of the working man any time soon.
Corner Stone
@Maude:
Never. Never, never, ever.
The Republicans will not be appeased by this transparent move.
They will never quit demonizing the govt workforce, and pushing for more punitive acts.
tomvox1
No doubt about it: This is an unforced error and a bonehead play that embraces conventional “centrist wisdom” at its very worst. Obama really does need a Clockwork Orange-like film session of every credible documentary on and speech by FDR. He couldn’t figure out a coherent populist economic policy if you spotted him the “New” and the “Dea.”
General Stuck
@LarsThorwald:
Madame Speaker Pelosi for now, or, more importantly, until after the tax cuts expire will not call a vote on extending the rich cuts, and the wingnuts in the senate likely will not support just a low income extension in the senate. This was always the way it was going to play out, everyone on the Hill knew it, the rest was kabucky. bye bye Bush tax cuts.
Fuck! A Duck
It just reinforces the idea that the Republicans were right all along.
DougJ
@Face:
Ha.
Mike Kay (Team America)
For the 2nd straight year social security will remain flat, as the inflation rate is zero. unemployment is at 10%. State employees are still getting laid off. Regular people (ie non-wall street) aren’t getting raises. Yet some want to boost/tip the dreaded police-state-apparatus.
And as for Clinton — he’s part of the reason why the country is messed up with his “free trade” deals, deregulating derivatives, and overturning Glass-Steagall.
Trinity
My sister had to take a 9% pay cut last year.
Corey
At what point can we just assume that the President and his advisers, rather than being stupid or misguided or flummoxed by Beltway bullshit, actually believes this stuff? That reducing the deficit will improve the short-term economy, that people are worried about “uncertainty”, etc.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Hmm.
I have around 35-40 years govt employment in my immediate family, a goodly amount of it mine, and a goodly amount of it (not mine) in the Federal ranks.
We had our share of freezes … hiring freezes that left departments understaffed and overworked, and pay freezes that left us without increases for years at a time while the prices of everything went up and up.
My comment to fed employees today: Shut the fuck up and be thankful for your jobs. To the rest of the people: It’s none of your business. People in public service can expect these measures in difficult times, and if they don’t like it, they should go work somewhere else.
Also, it’s a symptom of grotesque over-politicization that an administrator at Obama’s level can’t make a rather ordinary administrative decision without incurring a tide of gratuitous and stupid bullshit like this thread.
Last, this is what is important today, and it needs to be spread around:
RLINGTON, VA—Following a Thanksgiving weekend in which agents were compelled to perform full-body scans and invasive pat-downs of millions of obese, exceedingly unhygienic American travelers, visibly disgusted Transportation Security Administration officials said Monday they were joining critics in opposing the controversial new security measures. “After inspecting nude images of some of the most revoltingly unmaintained bodies in the world, we must call for an immediate end to these federally mandated scans,” said TSA chief John Pistole, who was forced to pause several times during a press conference when his gag reflex was triggered by the visual aids being presented to reporters. “Furthermore, intimate contact with the actual sweaty genitals of these nauseating individuals thousands of times a day has convinced us no one deserves to be subjected to this horrible procedure. The rubber gloves do not make it better.” Several TSA agents have suggested the new security protocols should remain in effect anytime Modern Family star Sofía Vergara is traveling domestically or internationally.
–Onion
El Cid
Well, we do all need to sacrifice. At least, those of us in the bottom 95% of income. Let’s pull together.
balconesfault
@jayackroyd: You’re right. That’s what’s happening in statehouses around the country – hiring freezes and early retirements.
Obama is all about making sure that the Executive Branch operates well. Which is why it’s kicking ass compared to any Exec Branch since Reagan was elected, the Clinton years included. And maintaining performance means maintaining the staffing levels.
I see this as a pre-emptive move before the Repubs come out calling for reductions in staff, which would erode efficiency.
Loneoak
Is it a congenital condition that forces Democrats to preemptively shit all over their constituencies in order to please Republicans who have no interest in doing anything other than also shitting all over Democratic constituencies?
I’m running out of explanations here. Obama, you fool of a Took!
Suck It Up!
Why is it that if it doesn’t please the left then it must be to please the far right?
Corner Stone
@Midnight Marauder:
But it does enforce the consistent narrative we’ve heard from this administration for some time.
“We know govt can’t create jobs”, etc.
For all the people claiming “optics” on this move, I hope you understand that in two years ALL of those federal employees are going to remember this decision.
Fuck! A Duck
mantis: Because Federal employees make about 75% of what you do for the same job.
Statistics – how do they fuckin’ work? Even Obama doesn’t know.
cleek
@Corey:
no, it’s actually 100% correct. not getting a raise when inflation is low and times are tight is not the worst thing in the world. we’d all like raises every year, but we don’t always get them. ( i know i don’t )
but it is completely ineffective at solving the deficit problem.
so it’s obviously a political move, but the politics are opaque – why on earth does he think this will do anything but make the GOP giggle ? and voters won’t care; by the time the next election rolls around, the GOP will have the public believing dozens of new falsehoods. complaining to Uncle Wingnut that “Obama froze Federal worker pay!” won’t even register – he’ll laugh it off with two or three completely outrageous lies that he heard on Fox the night before.
WyldPirate
Here’s what Krugthulu has to say about the freeze:
That Obama, he’s a real compromiser– really reaching across the aisle kind of guy. He’s going to totally knuckle under to the Rethugs and go the austerity route by beating them to their own ineffectual action that is nothing more than useless symbolism. Why? Because he’s totally lost control of the message apparatus of the “bully pulpit” and is getting owned by the Rethugs.
And you Obot clowns…get ready for a lost decade that makes Japan’s look like a fucking picnic. This is just the beginning.
BOHICA, America! USA! USA! USA!
Corner Stone
@Suck It Up!: Who does this please?
Elizabelle
Honestly, I am for the wage freeze. Shared sacrifice has to begin somewhere, and no one seems to be imposing it on the banksters.
Federal workers, to my knowledge, get excellent benefits and pensions, and have a lot more job security than those in the private sector.
Obviously, the banksters should be taking a major haircut.
But given the economic climate private sector workers face, I don’t mind seeing a wage freeze for people with secure, publicly funded jobs.
FlipYrWhig
Seems like bullshit, symbolic bullshit, ineffectual bullshit to me. And I say that as a state employee who hasn’t seen a raise in several years.
jayackroyd
@Martin:
http://www.ianwelsh.net/what-could-obama-have-done-and-what-can-obama-still-do/
Going Forward: What Obama Can Still Do
Not only could Obama rectify DADT, HAMP, Habeus Corpus, and his Social Security commission with a stroke of his pen, he can still do a great deal to help the economy. If he wants to.
TARP: Obama has complete control of the TARP funds, the majority of which have not been spent. (We’re talking over $500 billion in slush funds.) $ 500 billion is a lot of stimulus, if it’s done right. Cash for Clunkers, representing a tiny fraction of the total stimulus funds, massively goosed GDP while it was in effect.
Leaving aside direct stimulus, there are plenty of other helpful things Obama could do. For example, as a friend of mine noted, most distressed debt today is selling to collection agencies for less than 10 cents on the dollar (often under 5 cents). The Treasury could buy up $100 billion of that distressed debt at 10 cents on the dollar. Reclaim the money at 15 cents on the dollar through the IRS, and otherwise just write it off. You won’t make 50% profit, because some people can’t pay even 10%, but you’ll almost certainly make some profit. Roll the money over and buy up more debt. Keep doing it. (N.B. In the past such debt didn’t sell so cheap, mainly because in the past, pre-Bankruptcy “reform”, people who really couldn’t pay would declare bankruptcy, but now they can’t. Obama never made fixing that horrible bankruptcy bill a priority at all.) Folks would be absolutely thrilled by a way to deal with distressed debt. With the debt off their backs, they could spend again, so it would also be stimulative. There are plenty of other things that could be done with over 500 billion dollars to help ordinary people and goose the economy.
Breaking the Banks (and getting lending going again): The banks have been pretty ungrateful for the massive bailout they received. They have unilaterally increased credit card rates to gouge customers, have been gaming the market (so much so that one quarter many banks didn’t lose money on their trading operations even one day of the quarter), have fought against financial reform, and have generally acted against the interests of the majority of Americans. One might say “well, now that they’re bailed out, there is nothing we can do about it.”
Wrong.
The Fed still holds over $2 trillion in toxic waste from the banks. The banks still hold trillions of dollars of toxic waste. If sold on the open market this stuff would sell for, oh, about 5 cents on the dollar. If forced to mark the assets they are keeping on their books at inflated prices to their actual market value, I doubt there is a single major bank in the country which wouldn’t go bankrupt. Including Goldman Sachs.
So here’s what you do. As the Federal Reserve you sell $100 billion of the toxic waste on the open market. Set an actual price for it. Then you make the banks mark their assets to market value. They go bankrupt. You nationalize them. (Why not?–They are actually bankrupt after all, and they haven’t increased lending like they were supposed to; in fact, they have decreased it.) You make the stockholders take their losses and the bondholders too, then you reinflate the banks. (If the Fed can print trillions to keep zombie banks “alive” it can print money to reinflate nationalized banks.) The banks lend under FDIC and Fed direction, at the interest rates the Fed directs. The FDIC and Fed eventually break the banks up into a reasonable size. And while they’re at it, they get rid of the entire executive class which caused the financial crisis, and have the DOJ go over all the internal memos and start charging everyone who committed fraud. (Hint: that’s virtually every executive at a major bank.) Again, this is completely up to Obama–the DOJ answers to him.
Sentient Puddle
@Corner Stone:
Boehner and Cantor have come out and praised this move, actually.
Of course, that and a buck fifty will get you a cup of coffee.
Kanamit
It never fails to amaze (and depress) me how many liberals decide that the solution to stagnant private sector wages is to cut public sector wages.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@cyntax: the loans were repaid with interest.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Corner Stone:
That’s right, “who is pleased” is always the most important criterion in any policy decision. Hell, everyone knows that.
To quote George Bush, “I always check the polls first to see what would make everyone happy, and then I deciderate.”
mantis
It never fails to amaze (and depress) me how many liberals decide that the solution to stagnant private sector wages is to cut public sector wages.
Did someone propose this as a solution to stagnant private sector wages? Who?
Corey
@mantis:
I haven’t gotten a raise in two years, due to the crap economy. Inflation and core CPI are extremely low these days. Why do federal employees need raises?
Just in case there are others who think this too, the (economic) answer is that you don’t take money out of the economy in a recession. Freezing federal salaries is a relative drop in the bucket, but a non-zero number of people will be economically harmed by the decreased purchasing power of federal employees, and that’s certainly not worth the seriously tiny budgetary impact of the freeze.
The political answer is that you don’t give your opponents a victory without getting one in return. Obama didn’t have to do this, it will make absolutely no difference in public perception (look at memorandum and see how the teahadists have already moved the goalposts), and he didn’t even get a single concession from the GOP in exchange.
Which is why we should all just take out Occam’s Razor already and realize that the man has center-right economic beliefs.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Kanamit:
Wow, you must have a busy life.
Usually, the run of the mill public pay freezes are a firewall against staffing cuts. In other words, pay freezes can save some public jobs.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
It’s a nearly empty gesture in budgetary terms and a slap in the face to those in civil service who actually work hard for modest compensation, all in the hope that our GOP friends will pretty please let us tax the gazillionaires a teeny-tiny bit more. This is pathetic. If Obama feels he has to do this when he’s still got massive majorities in Congress for a few more weeks what’s he going to do when he doesn’t?
tomvox1
@mantis:
Simply put, decreased spending power by federal employees hurts the general economy at large, which itself retards the possibility for future growth. The way to prime the pump is not by wage freezes, particularly when it’s the government paying the salary. The government should be spending more money to get things up and running. This is why the notion of the government tightening its belt just like the average American family is so goddamned stupid. It validates some of the most perniciously wrongheaded and ignorant thinking about the nature of the economy and how to fix it. And the fact that Obama seems to have no clue how stupid that is or even if UNEMPLOYMENT IS CYCLICAL OR STRUCTURAL is really, really fucking scary.
Not to mention that federal workers are paid less than their private sector counterparts. Not to mention that means the government already has trouble attracting talent to work for it. And on and on…
This Obot is feeling a wee bit sickly and it’s not just a turkey and bourbon hangover.
WyldPirate
@Nick:
Big surprise, Nick.
You would support Obama skull-fucking a kitten in front of his daughters live on national TV, too.
Joseph Nobles
Orrin Hatch just took Obama’s federal pay freeze and, in a spirit of bipartisanship, endorsed allowing Bush tax hikes on upper brackets to happen!
No, I’m kidding. He called for a reduction in federal employees as well as the pay freeze.
Kanamit
@mantis: OK, so it’s just out of spite then. That’s much better.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Obama has a lot of nerve doing something like this without running it by the blogs first.
Elizabelle
I agree that this is not the time to take federal spending out of the economy.
And this is indeed symbolic.
Maybe it’s even a first step on imposing some shared sacrifice, in the very real sense. “I’ve taken a small step to reduce federal spending that I can control. Now it’s time for us all to step to the plate.”
We’re citizens.
Not just constituencies or public employee interest groups.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
Did the article attribute that to him or quote the WH? Otherwise it’s just a reporter trying ti play pundit
WarMunchkin
@Nick: Okay. A wage freeze is not the same as a wage cut, but real wages drop when nominal wage stays the same because of inflation.
Second – everyone who has argued “I took a wage cut” or someone you know took a wage cut implies “why shouldn’t these people?” just failed huge for a few reasons.
1) you’re being played by resentment politics. Aka My life is shitty, why do other people deserve marginally less shitty lives, they should have to suffer as much as me.
2) When real wages are cut for workers, that means they have less money to spend. For every dollar they’re not spending, the national economy is losing out on possible growth, which means that your wages are going to continue to be depressed and we’re still not going to have jobs. Instead of trying to stimulate the bottom of the economy, what we have is a 2 billion dollar destimulus.
3) If this wage freeze passes, and so do tax cuts for the wealthy, what you have is yet another direct transfer payment from the poor to the rich. yay plutocracy.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@WyldPirate: When KThug supported NAFTA and the Cadillac Tax all the lefties said he was a fuckhead who should never be listen to.
When he bashes obama, the lefties bow on their knees to the great economist.
can’t have it both ways.
Maude
@Corner Stone:
It takes away that particular club the rightie radio has been gearing up to use.
Social Security is going to be the same for the 2nd year in a row. I come under that.
Suck It Up!
@Corner Stone:
every move or decision he makes shouldn’t be dumb down to who Obama likes best. Do you guys really think that the tea party/republicans are the only ones who would see this move as a good thing?
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Nick:
yup, bloggers mock the Village and CW, …. unless it suits them.
Amanda in the South Bay
@WarMunchkin:
I’m very much staying out of this debate for the most part, but couldn’t your statement about resentment politics be turned on its head-i.e. lots of BJers (and leftists in general) feeling resentful toward the people who make over 250K and continuing the Bush tax cuts?
Corner Stone
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
Hate to break it to you, but when policy is done for pure “optics”, it does need to please some section of constituency.
And my response was to Suck It Off’s logic fail of a question.
tomvox1
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
All due respect to your years of federal service but to say that you accepted previous freezes with stoic resolve is not the same thing as making it a sound economic policy. You are confusing an admirable work ethic with macroeconomic science and what actually benefits the most amount of American citizens both in & out of the government. A federal pay freeze is not the right answer in a recession. Period.
Martin
@jayackroyd:
That’s simply, factually wrong. The finreg bill slashed the TARP authorization to a total of $475B since it became clear that $700B wasn’t needed. Funds repaid are not automatically re-authorized. Any other use of TARP funding needs to be approved by Congress, as was Cash for Clunkers. $396B of the $475B has been spent so far. At most, they have $79B to play with, and with banks still failing at a rapid rate and with FDIC basically out of funds, the money is mostly being used for soft landings for smaller regional banks and credit unions, not for investment banks. Here’s the last 10 TARP recipients, which I would argue do provide a reasonable stimulus as I think we’d all rather see more of these kinds of institutions survive than see them all swept up into GS. Are there other things to use the $79B for? Possibly, but I don’t think these are bad causes – certainly no worse than to get people to buy cars:
Buffalo Cooperative Federal Credit Union
Hill District Federal Credit Union
Episcopal Community Federal Credit Union
Thurston Union of Low-Income People (TULIP) Cooperative Credit Union
Workers United Federal Credit Union
Renaissance Community Development Credit Union
Faith Based Federal Credit Union
Fidelis Federal Credit Union
Union Baptist Church Federal Credit Union
East End Baptist Tabernacle Federal Credit Union
You might be confusing TARP with the Fannie/Freddie bailout funds, which are unlimited in size. Treasury is authorized to spend as much as is needed on Freddie/Fannie.
Corner Stone
@Suck It Up!: It’s garbage. It makes him look silly.
Suck It Up!
@WyldPirate:
you’re a fucking pervert, you know that?
Damned at Random
I am a retired federal employee (20+) years. I’m ambivalent about the freeze – been expecting it for years actually. As long as I was in federal service, the administrations (Dem and Repub) have tried to decouple the military and civil service raises and the federal unions (and some friendly, powerful Congressmen) fought them off. Downsizing and outsourcing have hit the federal unions hard so I won’t be suprized if this is the year that the military connection is broken.
My opinion is that this is a shortsighted move. In the professional corps – engineering and law in particular – federal pay lags far behind corporate pay. For now, a lot of people are hugging their desks – security is a big deal in a recession- but when the economy strengthens, journeymen level people will reconsider leaving their government jobs and recruitment will tank. Action/reaction. This may be an expensive move in the long run
slag
Awesome. Well, we’ve obviously reached Serious Season by now.
In that light, I look forward to the market’s positive reaction to this pay-freeze decision with the DOW reaching at least 12,000 by 5pm EST this evening. We have some ground to make up after the DOW’s negative reaction to Obama cutting his lip playing basketball, which was, of course, excellent news for John McCain.
mantis
Just in case there are others who think this too, the (economic) answer is that you don’t take money out of the economy in a recession.
Unless federal employee raises are being funded by deficit spending, that’s exactly what we’d be doing anyway. Taxes pay those people’s salaries. Those taxes take money out of the economy, which then gets taxed again on its way to the federal employees.
Freezing federal salaries is a relative drop in the bucket, but a non-zero number of people will be economically harmed by the decreased purchasing power of federal employees, and that’s certainly not worth the seriously tiny budgetary impact of the freeze.
How does not getting a raise in a time of nearly zero inflation decrease their purchasing power? It does not.
Obama didn’t have to do this, it will make absolutely no difference in public perception (look at memorandum and see how the teahadists have already moved the goalposts), and he didn’t even get a single concession from the GOP in exchange.
Again, making policy decisions based on what teahadists think is madness. Add to that the fact that Republicans won’t make any concessions, on anything, and even if they did, they wouldn’t live up to their promises. Obama has to attempt to govern despite them. And politically, if the Senate were to actually pass this proposal, Obama can point to it as an example of his willingness to compromise and work with Republicans. As much as firebaggers would like to see President Palin in 2012, I would prefer Obama be re-elected. Politically, that means he has to make some tough choices.
Which is why we should all just take out Occam’s Razor already and realize that the man has center-right economic beliefs.
Did someone believe otherwise? Why?
Nick
@WarMunchkin:
What inflation? There is no inflation
I only support this move for two reasons 1.) There’s no inflation, so there’s no real effect and 2.) It’s being done everywhere.
I really don’t care if it makes the Republicans right, because if it does, then they were right. I really wish they’d wise up on tax cuts though.
I’m for a wage freeze and I’m for completely ending the Bush tax cuts, I’m also for raising taxes on the rich beyond where they were in 2001 too. And THEN with the money the government is bringing in with that, invest in clean energy and jobs programs.
But what do I know, I’m just a fucking Obot. And it’s more important we outsmart Republicans because this is all just a game.
timb
@Punchy:
Not if you were using your V-chip, because if you were, you wouldn’t know the catalog existed!
Midnight Marauder
@Corner Stone:
The only way this gambit works is if the Obama Administration and Congress hold firm on their plans to hold a vote only on permanently extending middle class tax cuts (that everyone in the country benefits from, which deserves repeating every single time).
So I guess that means it’s time for Democrats and liberals to get work and start blowing up some congressional phone lines in Washington D.C.
Corner Stone
@Sentient Puddle:
I’m sure as they turned away from the podium they rubbed their filthy hands together and smiled in a most peculiar and evil fashion.
maryQ
I don’t know what the hell is going on in all y’all’s work places, but here at my place (large state univ. system, administrative office), it’s wage freezes and hiring freezes all around. Except for the people that are, like, you know, losing their actual jobs and shit.
I’m with Nick and everyone else who is OK with this.
Stop whining. Unless you are actually unemployed.
Zifnab
It does raise the question of why Obama insists on kicking his base to appease the unappeasable right wingers.
Cut the defense budget. Cut the private contractor budget. Maybe make a few cuts to the TSA. But a wage freeze on government workers? We’re blowing a fortune on military contractors overseas and it’s the White House front desk cleric who needs a pay freeze?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/11/28/923541/-The-war-in-Afghanistan-enters-Joseph-Heller-territory
So tell me again about that $2 billion in savings.
timb
@mantis: ah, the politics of resentment…..welcome. Make yourself at home
pto892
I’m a 30 year fed. I can live with a two year pay freeze-seriously it is not the worst thing in the world. What I find surprising is the idea that this will somehow appease the Republicans with respect to leaving the federal workforce alone, that this is a realistic approach to dealing with the deficit, and that Obama was correct in offering this up before even being asked to. As has been pointed out throughout this thread, this is a tiny tiny drop in the bucket. The wage increases in question are tied to inflation (they are a cost of living adjustment, not a pay increase) and since inflation is running around 1~2% the money involved is not a lot. Most of it would have been spent on day to day items anyway-gas, food, maybe a deluxe dinner at Chipotle. Outside of that the Republicans have always run against federal workers as part of their standard routine. Having been handed this gift for free, why should they stop? So yes, I expect that a pay cut will be one of the the next Republican talking points. Hiring freezes are so old school and have been part of the Starve The Beast approach to Republican government management for years. They also don’t work, and for a lifer like me they are actually a form of employment insurance. They need a new gimmick, one that stirs up the tea partiers and infuriates the Democrats. As to the politics of it-maybe Obama knows something I don’t but it makes no sense. Get a concession of some kind first, then I could understand it but instead it’s just offered up as an unforced error.
El Tiburon
@mantis:
As others here have mentioned: it reinforces the narrative that cutting wages/benefits etc. is the way to go. Also, in a time of a recession, cutting a person’s salary also cuts their ability to go buy shit – in other words to STIMULATE the economy.
Boo-fucking-hoo.
Look, when you go to work for the government, you are implicitly agreeing to a few things: 1. You will get raises on an incremental basis 2. You will, for the most part, have a form of job security. 3. You will not EVER get rich. EVER. 4. You will not get a huge bonus, stock options or a chance to become CEO or retire early with a golden parachute.
But yes, by all means, let’s tie federal workers incomes to your income.
geg6
I’m done. Another complete submission before anyone even asks for concessions or any negotiating even begins. The idea of even giving an inch to the deficit fetishists before unemployment is extended or the tax cuts for the rich are ended is too much for me to swallow. Obama is a pussy. There is no getting around it. I’m done with pussies.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Punchy: Sheesh. I had to Google Adam and Eve Catalog to get in on the joke. How did I NOT know about this? So now I can type ….. bwahhahahahahahahahahahaha
@General Stuck:
Greatest. Christmas. Song. Ever. And it always puts a smile on my face.
WarMunchkin
@Amanda in the South Bay: It could, and it has. That’s one of the many arguments Andrew Sullivan and other pundits have for extending the tax cuts for the rich and accusing people of class war. ut the reason I mentioned that is that I was remembering this report on the tea party members I read by Brad DeLong about how they were pissed that they were unemployed but public sector workers existed, saying that if private sector employees were unemployed, then the public sector ones deserved to be too. (Actually, growth in public sector has been, what, 22%?) It’s a bad economic argument because the more money that goes to the middle class, the more consumption increases, which means GDP increases. On the other hand, giving money to the rich, who have higher propensities to save or invest in foreign countries, means that you’re getting less bang for the buck in cutting taxes for them, since they’re not actually spending that money and contributing to a rise in consumption. At least that’s how I understand it.
As far as me personally being resentful of the rich, I’m guilty of it and proud of it. Resentment politics, also, just as I understand it, generally refers to the practice of dividing the lower classes against each other.
It’s worth saying that I’m not an economist, so you can tell me I’m bullshitting if you want.
JGabriel
@Nick:
Depends on their income levels. Under 100 – 150k per year, they’ll probably spend it. Over that, they’ve already got enough to live on, and will probably save or invest it — neither of which helps the economy.
But I suspect you already knew that.
.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Elizabelle:
That’s the whole point, no it isn’t. It’s pre-negotiating away all your chips, again. And this is while the Dems still have huge majorities in Congress. Pathetic.
SiubhanDuinne
Another example of “Obama can’t win for losing.” Freeze federal workers’ pay? A cynical boneheaded appease-the-GOP move. Give federal workers a raise (or even merely allow normal COL adjustments to take effect)? ZOMG Obama’s increasing the deficit and it’s YOUR tax dollars feeding the government hogs at the trough! Either way, it’s probably a minuscule amount, and as cleek points out* it probably saves (or, alternatively, would probably add) about a day’s worth of running the DoD.
On balance I wish he hadn’t made this decision, but it does seem as though no matter what he does in whatever area of Presidential responsibility, he’s going to get blamed by someone. There are no good choices for him, only less-bad ones.
– –
*I am taking cleek’s word for it that it amounts to about a day’s DoD budget. I don’t know, am not a mathematician, and have no interest in looking it up.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Frakenstein say: lefty resentment goode. Righty & Indie resentment is bahd.
Suck It Up!
@Corner Stone:
yeah, that’s your concern. it pisses some of you off because it appears to give the Republicans a point.
Elie
@LarsThorwald:
I’ve had a pay freeze for the last two years in the private sector. Why can’t public employees have pay freezes?
We have had two waves of layoffs too. I don’t think that government employees need to fear that nearly as much.
I don’t think its great messaging or that it will be effective way to cut our deficit on the backs of public servants. That said, my point is real — other people have had their wages frozen, hours reduced and been layed off too…
d.s.
This is absurd. Since when did federal employees become the nation’s piggybank? It’s not a freeze, it’s a cut.
Obama must really want to lose Virginia in 2012. A hell of a lot of federal employees there.
Why can’t he go around criticizing rappers and Jesse Jackson instead? I’d be okay with a few “the era of big government is over” lines in his speeches.
Bill is looking more and more like a leftist radical the longer we see Obama in action.
numbskull
@Mike Kay (Team America):
When Krugman says or does something I agree with, I agree with him. If he says or does something I don’t agree with, you’re telling me I’m supposed to “agree” with him because on some other issue in the past I agreed with him?
I don’t even always agree with myself. Why should Krugman get special treatment? :)
geg6
FYWP, I’m in moderation, so I’m copying and pasting what I said with a fix for the word I’m sure set off WP.
I’m done. Another complete submission before anyone even asks for concessions or any negotiating even begins. The idea of even giving an inch to the deficit fetishists before unemployment is extended or the tax cuts for the rich are ended is too much for me to swallow. Obama is a pu$$y. There is no getting around it. I’m done with pu$$ies.
ed drone
@Nick:
Who said they won’t? These are Federal employees, you know. Under $250K salaries and all, the ones who get a tax cut in either Obama’s and the Republicans’ plans. You know, the ones who spend and keep the economy afloat (even as they have trouble keeping themselves afloat*), not the millionaires who would bank a tax cut and not increase spending? Those (us) people.
I hate not getting even the minuscule raise proposed in the budget, but at least it’s not a cut.
Ed
And * I know whereof I speak.
Amanda in the South Bay
@El Tiburon:
And you wonder why some people feel resentment? Most people in the private sector will never get rich, or become a Menlo Park living CEO. But, in an economy when the private sector has been fucked over, I’m not feeling too much sympathy for people with (almost) guaranteed job security. Why is there this assumption that Federal employees are one send of a resume away from ultra lucrative start-up tech salaries, or something like that?
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Zifnab:
When has he kicked the base? Name once.
Talk about projection — the self appointed base never misses a opportunity to kick him.
General Stuck
@The Grand Panjandrum:
LOL, makes me a little homesick :)
WarMunchkin
@Nick: I’m not really accusing you of anything. You’re right that inflation is low, but it takes money out of the economy regardless. I guess the problem that I have is the “everyone is doing it”. I think the mentality that people should have is that if other workers in the lower, say, 3/4 income brackets aren’t getting paid, that not only hurts them – it hurts you too.
timb
@WyldPirate: Did anyone tell David Broder yet? You know, capitulation before the war even starts might prove his bipartisan sincerity to ol’ Dave.
Oh, and WyldPirate, as usual, I hope Christ, your chosen Presidential candidate, who never commits a mistake and toes your extreme political line, runs is 2012. Otherwise, all you’ll be able to vote for is the Ghost of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign and President Palin. Grow up and stop expecting perfection from your political leaders.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Damned at Random:
From what I’ve gathered, the legal sector has been hurt pretty hard by the recession as well. I don’t think its certain that a government lawyer is guaranteed to find a better paying job in the private sector.
Martin
I don’t see how anyone should interpret this as ‘federal employees are paid too much’ unless they themselves have adopted RW talking points.
A pay freeze is usually indicative of ‘we don’t have the money to give raises’ and I don’t see how that can really be argued. Even if Obama gets his way on the tax cut extension, and even if defense spending gets cut by 50%, we still won’t have the money in the budget to give raises. Nothing short of giving Bernie Sanders totalitarian control of the federal budget is going to result in a balanced budget in the next 2 years.
If you’re stupid and don’t care if these problems are solved or not, you’ll pile on Obama for this act. If you’re smart and care about solving it, you’ll turn your attention to Congress and demand they work on the big items. My guess is that people will bitch that Obama didn’t make enough phone calls to force Congress to generate a half trillion dollars in new revenue and demand that he be primaried, that the 4 years under a Republican president will be ‘cleansing’ and ‘transformative’ to Democrats.
mantis
Also, in a time of a recession, cutting a person’s salary also cuts their ability to go buy shit – in other words to STIMULATE the economy.
Was someone discussing salary cuts?
Boo-fucking-hoo.
I’m not whining, I’m pointing to economic realities for those of us not receiving a government paycheck. Do those not matter?
Look, when you go to work for the government, you are implicitly agreeing to a few things: 1. You will get raises on an incremental basis
Yeah, I got those at my job too. Until 2008.
2. You will, for the most part, have a form of job security.
Regular raises despite the economy plus job security? Well gee, I have to perform to keep my job, and I can’t count on regular raises despite the economy. You’re really making me feel for the federal workers here.
3. You will not EVER get rich. EVER. 4. You will not get a huge bonus, stock options or a chance to become CEO or retire early with a golden parachute.
I’ll never get rich in my job either. I work for a private non-profit institution. We don’t get rich.
But yes, by all means, let’s tie federal workers incomes to your income.
Not my income, the economy in general, which affects all incomes (but federal employees should be exempt, apparently).
eemom
well. It seems to me there are good points being made on both sides of this argument. And if there are fed employees here saying that this is ok with them, that POV deserves some respect.
The devil is in the tax cuts. IMO keeping them for the 2% is not negotiable in any way shape or form. I am also ok with letting all of them die.
That is the gun Obama needs to stick to.
GregB
Clearly this will forever end any Republican criticism of federal workers. Genius.
Suck It Up!
@d.s.:
Bill who? the guy who put DOMA and DADT in place? that Bill? Damn! he really is good! made you all forget that he put in place the very things Obama gets slammed for not fixing fast enough.
d.s.
@Elie: People in the private sector are treated like shit, so instead of trying to improve conditions for them, we should treat federal workers like shit too?
This is the reason why American workers are making less today than they were back in the 1970s, in spite of all the productivity increases. Workers will gladly stab each other in the back just to have the gratification of bringing down the people who get too uppity.
I’ve got news for you: Making federal workers poorer isn’t going to make you richer.
The opposite in fact, because their pay cut will hurt the economy overall.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@tomvox1:
If you want to argue with me, you need to do better than misread my remarks and get them wrong in the very first half sentence of your post.
Try again.
And … federal salaries are a federal administrative decision. Who really gives a shit, other than bloggers with way too much time on their hands? Besides, ED Kain hasn’t weighed in on this.
Citizen Alan
I just can’t wait to see what new depths of personal humiliation this cringing, beaten dog of a President will inflict on himself and the Democratic Party when the Republicans actually do take Congress in January. And make no mistake, with quislings like Lieberman and Nelson and the Administration’s eagerness to grovel already proven, the Republicans will effectively have control over Congress no matter what the Senate rolls say.
I wonder how many Republicans will stand up at the State of the Union this year to shout out “You lie!” or worse. I wonder if he’ll just stand there and take it. Maybe he’ll cry or something.
chopper
guys, it isn’t a ‘pay freeze’. us feds won’t get a COLA for the next two years. the one we were allegedly going to get in ’11 was supposed to be about 1%, tho i and every other fed i know was never expecting it to happen anyways.
we still get our grade/step increases, bonuses, etc.
basically this was either an attempt to look like an austerity measure to placate the masses, or an attempt to give the GOP, who invariably wants to round up government employees and put them in camps, something to gnaw on instead of, well, us.
i’m not going to say it’s great, but not getting a 1% pay raise that i wasn’t even expecting in the first place doesn’t exactly raise my hackles.
eemom
@Amanda in the South Bay:
You can say that again. Or ANY job.
timb
@Amanda in the South Bay: No, that’s empirical. Income equality is not fake. The partners at my firm make more than 250,000 and I would not be embarrassed to tell them at the Christmas party (that they pay for) that they should pay more. I don’t resent them; I’d like to be them, but inequality is bad for the country
maus
it won’t even satisfy the chattering class, you have to cut taxes for the beltway insiders to cheer.
Suck It Up!
@Mike Kay (Team America):
its the default comment whenever Obama does something they don’t like. His whole world revolves around kicking his base and pleasing the teatards.
Mike Kay (Team America)
Why do lefties bloggers always break down a political act/event on a binary left/right plane?
None of ya, ever heard of indies?
Yes, in congress, in the Village, in the blogosphere there are no indies-slash-moderates.
But Indies-slash-swing voters (who vote for LBJ in one cycle and for Nixon in the next) sure exist at the ballot box.
They’re like gestures as much as the left and right.
mantis
@GregB:
Clearly this will forever end any Republican criticism of federal workers. Genius.
No policy proposal should be adopted unless it is guaranteed to stop Republicans from whining. Genius.
Suck It Up!
@chopper:
don’t blow their high chopper.
General Stuck
@Suck It Up!:
This is why we call them “retards”. No real difference than a left wing version of teatard.
Corey
@mantis:
Unless federal employee raises are being funded by deficit spending, that’s exactly what we’d be doing anyway.
The whole federal government is borrowing money, and since money is fungible, federal employee raises are indeed being funded by deficit spending.
How does not getting a raise in a time of nearly zero inflation decrease their purchasing power? It does not.
Scenario A: Federal employee wages are frozen at X.
Scenario B: Federal employee wages are allowed to continue to rise, to X + H.
Federal employees just lost H dollars of purchasing power, and Obama just sucked H dollars out of the economy, during a recession.
As much as firebaggers would like to see President Palin in 2012, I would prefer Obama be re-elected. Politically, that means he has to make some tough choices.
I’d be very interested to see a cogent explanation of how an economically harmful, politically meaningless policy will help avoid President Palin. By my books, since the president is largely judged by the state of the macroeconomy, we just took one tiny step towards President Palin today.
Elie
@d.s.:
d.s — I am not sure what you read in my comment, but I certainly was NOT advocating for a pay cut for Federal workers. I thought we were talking about a pay freeze.
I was only pointing out that when times get tight financially, pay freezes reflect the diminished revenue. One is not an evil corporist to acknowledge when there may not be enough money to give people raises.
I dont think that wage freezes are necessarily horrible treatment if the organization does not have funds. If I were a small business owner, making say, for example, toys and I did not make enough profits in a period to give my employees a raise, but they retained their jobs and benefits, what is the evil cruelty there?
You make a leap to wage freezes as treating employees with cruelty and I just don’t see that.
BTW, I was a federal employee at one point and have many friends who are. Again, not talking about or championing pay cuts —
chopper
@Suck It Up!:
being a buzzkill is such a drag. i was waiting for the 2000-word missive out of wyldie about how this proves obama is the biggest chump ever, peppered with anal rape references.
cleek
@SiubhanDuinne:
just FYI….
DoD budget this year = $700,000,000,000
$700,000,000,000 / 365 days = $1,917,800,000 per day.
just under $2B. i feel comfortable rounding up.
you can do a lot of fun things with that number.
d.s.
@Suck It Up!: Clinton was terrible on gay rights issues.
On economic issues he was to the left of Obama.
timb
@eemom: He won’t. he’s signaled at least twice by my count that he is “willing to negotiate,” which means to me, at the very least, he will agree to kick the can down the road and contemplate “tax increases” in a national election year…..that’s just smart electioneering and all (if you are Sean Hannity)
Shawn in ShowMe
How come most of the government employees in this thread are either neutral or supportive concerning this measure and most of the non-government workers are pissed? You’d think it be the other way around.
Jesus Christ on a pogo stick
Because while wages are out there not increasing, cost of living is out there very much increasing. Therefore, the same wage X amount of time later will buy less than it does now.
What, nothing about how greedy public employee unions are? Republicans have spent the last thirty years destroying wages in the private sector, and are now saying that it’s an injustice that wages in the public sector have not been similarly destroyed. Yes, I buy that.
The fact that everyone else has been getting the shaft for years isn’t justification for also giving it to the few people who escaped unscathed. And if the government needs money, let them tax it off the super-rich – you know, the only people who’re actually swimming in money while the rest of us get shafted.
I’m not a public employee, but I’m with them.
d.s.
@Elie: A pay freeze, that freezes wages in nominal terms, is a pay cut.
It’s not like inflation is an unknown phenomenon. That’s the whole fucking point of a COLA.
Cancelling the COLA is a pay cut, plain and simple. It will make federal workers poorer.
mantis
The whole federal government is borrowing money, and since money is fungible, federal employee raises are indeed being funded by deficit spending.
Let’s keep doing that forever!
Federal employees just lost H dollars of purchasing power
You can’t lose what you don’t have.
I’d be very interested to see a cogent explanation of how an economically harmful, politically meaningless policy will help avoid President Palin.
It’s neither economically harmful nor politically meaningless.
Rhoda
Who believes that with two wars going on ANYONE is going to cut the Department of Defense? Especially given the parochial interests at play?
I’m mean, fuck. That’s just stupid.
This budget freeze from President Gimmick (so fucking awesome that DK rolls that out on a Democratic president but not once during four years of Bush, fucking A, can’t wait for the 2012 ad) is a gimmick that puts him in the drivers seat during the Rep/Dem faceoff tomorrow. And coupled with the news that the Democrats are going to hold a vote on extending middle class tax cuts only, something Team Obama was begging them to do before the election, you begin to see that maybe this is what it took to get enough Blue Dogs willing to hold this vote.
It’s a God damn shame how Democrats pretty much leave their Presidents out there alone to face the hordes and fight the war; and then bitch and moan when they don’t get the shit they want and believe in.
Martin
@geg6: Concession? I thought we were all in agreement that there is no negotiating with the GOP?
Would it be better if Congress opened up with a 5% pay cut for federal employees and Obama negotiates that down to a pay freeze? Or would it be better if Obama negotiates a pay freeze in exchange for 3 fewer bombers? What exactly do people expect Obama to negotiate and win here?
Either everything turns into a political calculation, at which point you need to treat everything like a political calculation, including the realties of what would be gained/lost, or you leave some things out of the realm of political calculation and treat them as necessary evils.
By not negotiating, Obama can stand up and say the nation cannot afford to give federal workers raises at this point until Congress chooses to cut Defense or other large-spending areas, or they choose to raise revenues by increasing taxes. But nobody will size up this move against what was gained/lost and frankly as a government employee who hasn’t seen a raise in 4 years, I’d rather it be due to a necessary evil rather than in exchange for whatever the DC reporters find in the budget that saves the same amount of money. It’d be far worse to be bombarded with the news that you were negotiated away in exchange for a bunch of new bus stops or a couple of planes.
But bottom line was that this was almost certain to happen with the GOP controlling the House. Obama can either work is as ‘Democrats can be budget realists’ or he could have let the House do this and fought against the ‘Republicans force Obama to cut spending’ narrative. Either way the outcome would almost certainly be the same.
You seem to think that Obama could have horse traded something here – he can’t. The Senate gets first dibs at that pie. The best he can do is take their political narrative away, which in this one case he has by making a realistic but unpleasant decision.
Mike Kay (Team America)
Geez, I thought the left would be happy the dreaded police-state (FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, TSA) would get a pay freeze.
Hell, this might cause a slew of resignations and shatter the Stasi.
mantis
@d.s.:
A pay freeze, that freezes wages in nominal terms, is a pay cut.
It’s not like inflation is an unknown phenomenon. That’s the whole fucking point of a COLA.
What’s inflation been like lately?
numbskull
And right on cue, Boner and Canter congratulate the President and say that now that he agrees with them, surely he sees the need for a hiring freeze.
http://tinyurl.com/2dwsao6
It’s only logiumacle.
mantis
@Martin:
Indeed.
El Tiburon
@mantis:
Basically the same thing – if you freeze someone’s salary, in two years, their salary would be cut adjusting for inflation.
You know, I’m really not arguing with you too much. I agree that those of us who have jobs should be very, very thankful. Plenty of my friends have seen their wages frozen or reduced. As we near bonus time here at my humble shop, I am sure it is not going to be pretty. In fact, this year I may be asked to reduce my wages. I won’t be happy, but that is the price to pay for being in the private arena. I also know that with a few lucky breaks I am capable of increasing my earnings 100% or more. Such is the game here.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with freezing federal wages. And I don’t think those federal workers really have much of a bone to pick, either.
But again, I think it sends the wrong message that while we can bailout Wall Street with trillions and watch as they dole out millions in bonuses that we must go to the middle-class and demand that they suffer.
If this wage-freeze is accompanied by letting the Bush tax-cuts expire and a serious jobs program, then okay. But I fear it is just more political folly by President Gimmick (per Jed Lewison @ DKos) that angers everyone and satisfies nobody.
d.s.
@mantis: It’s hovering around 1%. Just because this is only a small pay cut doesn’t mean it’s not a pay cut.
FlipYrWhig
@d.s.:
I don’t think that’s true on trade. I don’t think it’s true on “welfare” and other safety-net programs. It’s definitely not true on banking–Glass-Steagall repeal, various deregulatory stuff, etc. On further reflection, I’m not sure it’s true in any area. And in terms of “framing,” remember that Clinton actually literally said “the era of big government is over.”
Elie
@d.s.:
Read chopper at 118 and leave me the hell alone
guys, it isn’t a ‘pay freeze’. us feds won’t get a COLA for the next two years. the one we were allegedly going to get in ‘11 was supposed to be about 1%, tho i and every other fed i know was never expecting it to happen anyways.
basically this was either an attempt to look like an austerity measure to placate the masses, or an attempt to give the GOP, who invariably wants to round up government employees and put them in camps, something to gnaw on instead of, well, us.
i’m not going to say it’s great, but not getting a 1% pay raise that i wasn’t even expecting in the first place doesn’t exactly raise my hackles.
Go pick on someone else — I duly note your point, but disagree with it. Time to move on, bro.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@mantis: The reality based community, ironically, doesn’t do reality (ie data).
Blue Neponset
@Shawn in ShowMe: It is bad politics. The freeze does little to reign in gov’t spending and it perpetuates a Republican narrative about how government is wasteful.
It also bothers me a lot because it gives the impression that a) the deficit is important right now and b) that we we can cut our way out of the huge hole Bush and the Republicans left us when they cut taxes almost a decade ago.
In short, it is an unforced error.
chopper
@Shawn in ShowMe:
because us government employees actually know what the proposal is, rather than getting a completely incorrect paraphrase from a crappy media story or leftie blog (seriously, the GOS has been apoplectic over it).
IrishGirl
The reasons fed emps will spend money is because studies show that an increase in one’s pay, doled out periodically in a paycheck actually gets spent constructively. Whereas, single payout of cash (such as tax cuts and refunds) do not get spent constructively.
And all those arguments aside…..what about Cost of Living? No ones wages in the US have kept up with COL and any raises they were seeing assist with that. So we know anything that goes toward COL will be spent constructively.
Tsulagi
This…
in fewer, simpler words…
Yep. But maybe Obama is going for “serious person” credentials to bring to the table when meeting with soon to be Speaker Orange. Might help when asking pretty please to let the majority Dems consider and take some votes on legislation during the next two months.
Kinda surprised the really smart teaconomists haven’t brought up the estate tax yet. For those M/B-aires lucky enough to die this year, the death tax rate is 0. There’s been a rush to take advantage. But for those bastards unlucky enough to live, or die in time, the top rate on 1 Jan goes to 55%. Oh the inhumanity and unfairness.
tomvox1
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
You:
Me:
You’re right. Totally misconstrued. Yeeeeaahhhh…
Anyway, sucking it up and being thankful for your job doesn’t make it good economic policy. Sorry. Neither does having lived through it in the past. That’s just not a valid argument. Same goes for all the others saying “well, I didn’t get a raise at my job either so stop whining.” Whining has nothing to do with it. It’s about what is stimulative to the economy as a whole and pay freezes for federal employees just ain’t, folks. Simple as that.
Martin
@numbskull: Sure, but that’s an argument from a position of weakness. The GOP didn’t force him to do it – they didn’t even try to make that argument. Obama took it away from them, and he has no obligation to take the next step. Obama has the narrative and has control here. Let’s see what he does with it.
General Stuck
@timb:
In 30 days, the tax cuts expire on their own, period. In the meantime, the only way to extend any of them is an identical bill from both the House and Senate in a lame duck congress, and there is about no chance of that happening. Obama can’t negotiate anything on that, it is on autopilot and Nancy Pelosi will not call for a vote on anything other than extending the low income cuts that the senate wingnuts will not likely agree to. So everyone’s taxes are going up in a month, and we start from scratch. Any new tax cuts will be Obama’s tax cuts, and dems can say they tried to extend the Bush low income cuts, but the wingers blocked it.
There will likely be negotiations after the new congress starts, and of course, it is a done deal that Obama will cave on everything because he is a weak, puzzy of an inadequate black man president. / so say the ‘retards” of the left.
chopper
@Tsulagi:
i don’t think obama did this to make the goopers and teatards happy. if he did then that’s fuckin stupid.
i think he did it to help get the blue dogs to go with ending the bush tax cuts for the rich while extending them for the middle class.
you gotta remember, most of the dude’s concessions haven’t been to make the GOP happy, despite all the bitching on lefty blogs. it’s been to get the conservative dems to come to the table.
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: Jed Lewison had his hair on fire more than anyone about how the Republicans’ blowing off the post-election budget meeting was a terrible “dis” move. I don’t trust his judgment. I think he enjoys too well saying the kinds of things that the DKos audience longs to hear–what, in tribute to Leslie Nielsen, I will always call the “Enrico Palazzo Effect.”
FlipYrWhig
@chopper:
That’s usually the reason I think Obama is constrained from doing, well, most good things. I’m not sure about this time. It’d be nice to think so.
chopper
@FlipYrWhig:
see Rhoda @136. shrug.
Corner Stone
I’m not sure why people keep touting the meme that govt workers jobs are so secure?
ISTM that over the last 10 months we’ve had a net loss of public sector jobs and a net increase in private.
Some, or a majority, of the public sector jobs were state jobs. But a significant chunk were federal. And most people aren’t making the distinction between state and federal when they say “govt jobs”.
gene108
He’s not trying to satisfy teatards.
He’s trying to satisfy independents, who probably voted for Bush, Jr. in 2000, got disaffected with the Republican Party because of Iraq (among other things) in 2004, 2006 and / or 2008, but somewhere in the backs of their minds are genuinely concerned about the debt and voted Republican in 2010 because they weren’t happy with $1 trillion deficits and the perception Democrats were wildly going to expand government and thus federal spending.
I haven’t seen any polling data on this and I don’t know if anyone has done a poll on this, but it’d be interesting to see if and how independents changed their vote between Republicans and Democrats over the last 5 elections. I bet there is a large section of the population that leaned Republican, but voted for Democrats in 2006 and 2008, but swung back to Republicans in 2010.
As much as Democrats need to connect with their base, they also need something to tempt these voters back.
Corey
@mantis:
Let’s keep doing that forever!
I’ll just ignore the glibness and reiterate that deficit spending is better than sucking money out of the economy. I thought we figured this out during, oh, the Hoover administration.
You can’t lose what you don’t have.
If federal employees had a reasonable expectation of raises, as I think most employees of organizations not subject to wage freezes do, then they did actually lose their raise H.
It’s neither economically harmful nor politically meaningless.
Does it help the economy? What political benefits does the president get from this?
Corner Stone
From the TPM article
JMC in the ATL
As a state employee, I can say with certainty that a pay freeze is preferable to mandatory furlough days.
FlipYrWhig
@chopper: I keep hoping that he’s setting up, in a rope-a-dope-ish way, a big speech or even longer-running campaign about how he has made all kinds of offers and extended all kinds of olive branches to Republicans, all of which they have spit on and pissed on. So now playtime is over. That’s what I hope.
I still think that the portion of the public that doesn’t pay much attention to politics is hoping that Republicans actually want to solve problems and govern; Republicans want to be able to say that their role is to keep saying “no” because Obama is such an abhorrent liberal with his liberal overreach and his liberal liberal-ness; and so Obama will have to pivot to say that Republicans aren’t just saying “no” because they believe something else, they just don’t believe that the government’s role is to help people or serve the common good. If Republicans try to shut down the government, Obama may want to say, “They’re a bunch of extremists, and they can’t truly say that I haven’t tried to meet them halfway on issue after issue.”
So I think he _is_ a calm and reasonable and unflappable guy, who _also_ wants to _look_ like the calm, reasonable, unflappable guy to set up a different kind of gambit. This move might have something to do with that. (I still don’t like it, though.)
Hope it works.
Corner Stone
@chopper:
Any Blue Dog still left in Congress is shit scared and going to move even further to the right, if possible.
Any Blue Dog who lost their seat is looking around with their hand out for the next opportunity.
Think they’re going to fuck over their next employer?
Jay B.
@numbskull:
No, what he’s saying is that having a consistent belief system makes you intellectually dishonest because you disagreed with Krugman 15 years ago when you thought he was wrong and you agree with him today when you think he’s right. That makes you a lefty hypocrite, naturally.
Resident Firebagger
That was Obama today. Social Security is next.
Welcome aboard, DougJ…
numbskull
@Martin:
I just KNOW that he won’t fart when I pull his other finger this time, right?
mantis
@Corner Stone:
I’m not sure why people keep touting the meme that govt workers jobs are so secure?
Because it’s true, for federal employees.
ISTM that over the last 10 months we’ve had a net loss of public sector jobs and a net increase in private.
After accounting for the temporary census jobs, almost all of those jobs are from local and state governments, especially local. Federal jobs are a different story.
Mike Kay (Team America)
I wonder who GOS will to primary the President, Ned Lamont or Bill Halter? Maybe Eric Massa.
Corner Stone
@gene108:
You think the moronic independents are going to remember this $2billion move when elections happen in 2 years?
Because IMO they can’t remember back to how freakin scary 2008 was, obviously.
El Tiburon
@FlipYrWhig:
I think about 4-5 posts in a row over at Dkos were on this topic. Hmmm…
All-in-all I find Jed to be fairly rational.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Resident Firebagger:
hhahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahhaha
Pot does cause paranoia.
mantis
I’ll just ignore the glibness and reiterate that deficit spending is better than sucking money out of the economy.
Forever!
If federal employees had a reasonable expectation of raises, as I think most employees of organizations not subject to wage freezes do, then they did actually lose their raise H.
They are subject to raise freezes, like the rest of us poor bastards. They know that, too.
Does it help the economy? What political benefits does the president get from this?
RTFT
numbskull
@Jay B.: Thanks. That’s what I thought he meant.
Corner Stone
@numbskull: Yeah, it’s the “all or none” tactic a lot of right wingers try to use in an argument.
They think they can get you to disavow someone if you disagree with any specific conclusion. And then call you a hypocrite when you don’t.
Classic nutter tactic.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@tomvox1:
No, it wasn’t misconstrued, it was factually incorrect. The posts speak for themselves. I have never been a federal employee, and said as much previously. Your blurb addressed me and began with “your years of federal service.”
That’s why my reply to you, just like the original post you replied to, was correct, and remains correct, just like this one is. You can’t seem to get anything right in this exchange.
Your other assertion, though, is more toxic. Who decreed that a federal wage action is of interest primarily because of its impact on the larger economy? What other wage decisions are made in response to their effects on the larger economy?
Wage decisions are generally made in response to imperative surrounding the employment agreement and its direct fiscal impact on the employer or on staffing. It’s a mundane administrative decision. When was the last time, do you think, that the people shooting off their mouths about this here had an opinion on federal employee wages? Or even had any idea what they were? Or for that matter, what they are now?
Do yourself a favor and take a nice warm enema and relax.
d.s.
Please. Those independent voters are going to hear about how Obama slashed aunt Susie’s pay, and will head to the local Tea Party rally with a “Keep the Government off My Paycheck!” sign.
My guess is that the Republicans are going to run ads in Virginia attacking Obama for stealing from hard working federal employees and giving it all away to black gay Islamo-abortionists.
Hello President Palin.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@numbskull: I don’t know if you’re a hypocrite, but you (ie the left) is inconsistent.
if ya gonna make an appeal to authority argument, then you can’t pick and choose.
didn’t they teach you that in community college?
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Resident Firebagger:
Social Security is not part of the budget calculations, it has its own basis in law. And a COLA increase has already been nixed for 2011.
For those who seem to know nothing about how this works, here’s a handy reference.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Since the site is just about hosed, couldn’t add this to my previous, so here it is separately:
From the SSA website:
For purposes of determining the COLA, the average CPI-W for the third calendar quarter of the last year a COLA was determined is compared to the average CPI-W for the third calendar quarter of the current year. The resulting percentage increase, if any, represents the percentage that will be used to increase Social Security benefits beginning for December of the current year. SSI benefits increase by the same percentage the following month (January). If the increase in the CPI-W is at least one-tenth of one percent (0.1 percent), there will be a COLA. However, if the CPI-W increases by less than 0.05 percent, or if the CPI-W decreases, there will not be a COLA.
BLS determined there was no increase in the CPI-W from the third quarter of 2008, the last year a COLA was determined, to the third quarter of 2010. Therefore, under existing law, there can be no COLA in 2011.
–//
The president does not control SS COLA adjustments.
wengler
So people get raises depending on inflation?
In most normal environments, raises depend on seniority, performance, and the fiscal health of the employer. Obviously the argument for a raise freeze could be predicated on the third condition, but it would be a really dump policy to implement one.
These type of freezes make no sense on any number of level. Most federal employees are paid on a transparent rank schedule. Just ask someone their rank and you will know how much they make. Does this mean that if people leave and/or retire that they will not be replaced by people in the lower ranks? I’m pretty certain the military is still going to be promoting people.
Also are government contractors included? As nominally private employees(who happen to subsist on 100% taxpayers’ money), are they subject to any raise freeze rules in the language of their contract?
I really don’t want Obama to be a mediocre president. But great presidents tend to want to create jobs by any means possible at this point of economic crisis, rather than push for Hoovernomics.
lethargytartare
@Jay B.:
no, what he’s actually saying is that the appeal to authority is particularly callow when you only accept the person’s authority when he agrees with you.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Of course not. Raises are always determined by blather on political blogs.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Corner Stone:
Yes, ED Kain will remind them. That is his job.
geg6
@Blue Neponset:
THIS.
I used to think you could call Obama a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. I admit to being wrong about that.
lol
@gene108:
Obama’s approval ratings have mostly held steady with Dems and liberal Dems (despite blogosphere protestations that they’re the *real* base). His job approval has cratered amongst indies/moderates.
RinaX
@Rhoda:
There’s a FP article up at the GOS now that seems pissed off that the vote is being held, because we might lose, which means we didn’t fight hard enough or something, I don’t know, it’s just messed up that the vote is coming up, and sellout, and all that stuff.
Corner Stone
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
Dude’s a hard worker! Ombudsman, in-house critic, cat herder of Independents. And, oh yeah, front page poster.
Forgot about that one since I almost never read what he writes.
numbskull
@Mike Kay (Team America): Gosh, where oh where did I make an appeal to authority as an argument? Oh, you meant someone else, the guy floating around between your ears, perhaps? Guy’s first name is “Straw” and last name of “Man”. Or is it our buddy Red? Red Herring? How’s he doin’, man?
Of course, blindly agreeing with Krugman on any given day on any given subject isn’t a bad way to beat the odds, just don’t hold me to it when I’m paying attention.
Barry
@Nick: Because the GOP tax cuts go as much as possible to the richest, who have the lowest marginal propensity to consume.
RinaX
@chopper:
But it just sounds so much better to accuse him of selling out to Repubs! You’re right, conservadems are who 99% of concessions have been made to. And they really believe in this shit, as much as that pisses off many on the left. With a lot of them are gone from Congress, it surprisingly isn’t going to produce more progressive legislation, and we will miss the loss of conservatives who are willing to make a deal. Because that’s how I ultimately look at the conservative Dems, and it saves me a lot of headaches.
Andrew
@RinaX:
Yeah. I mean, yes, I think this pay freeze is a stupid and gimmicky unforced error. But, seriously, FIVE hysterical front page posts about it?
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
Again with this?
LikeableInMyOwnWay
( radio static and whistling … )
If Congress approves, the freeze would do away with a 1.4 percent pay raise in 2011 for all civilian federal government employees. The freeze does not apply to the armed forces, though it does affect civilian employees of the Department of Defense. It also does not apply to congressional workers or members of Congress, who voted to freeze their own pay last April.
–//
The president’s announcement comes as something of a pre-emptive strike against congressional Republicans, who plan to cut federal pay and workforce next year. Republicans have pushed for a pay freeze in the past.
–ABCNews
Mike Kay (Team America)
@lethargytartare:
Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.
If it wasn’t so funny, it would be sad.
What can’t johnny
readdiagram the fallacies underlying a conflicting appeal to authority argument?numbskull
@lethargytartare: Who are these people who are appealing to the authority of The Mighty K? Who is agreeing with Krugman without indicating why they agree with him? If I agree with him on what I agree with him on, does that mean I’m appealing to his authority? Or does it mean, gosh, I don’t know, that I agree with him on the merit of the argument?
Or disagree, for that matter.
Who is arguing this? Who is appealing to authority as their sole argument? The people on this blog or imaginary “others”?
Roman Berry
@pto892: Yep. Give ’em an inch and they’ll take a mile. The thing is, you and I both know that President Obama and his advisers are fully aware of this. Makes you think maybe Obama and his advisers want to give up that mile…
General Stuck
@geg6:
LOL, right, so say Blue Neponset and geg6, resident experts on smart politics, versus some dude got himself elected president. Thanks for the chuckle.
I like chocolate pie, btw.
Villago Delenda Est
@mantis:
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
As quasi-Obama Administration functionaries, all balloonbaggers are eligible for this latest historic victory!
.
.
chopper
@lol:
this makes no sense. if his approval is steady among dems and cratering among indies and moderates, then why has his overall approval stayed steady for the last year or so? something aint adding up.
joe from Lowell
Yes, it’s bullshit. It’s pure politics. But it’s not supposed to satisfy the teatards.
Triangulation isn’t about trying to satisfy the opposition. It’s about pushing them to advocate extreme positions. In fact, triangulation relies upon the opposition not being satisfied, and continuing to attack you no matter what you do.
Yesterday, the Republicans could run on the platform “Obama needs to go farther! He should implement a federal wage freeze!” Not a terrible position, politically.
Now, they can’t do that. They’re still going to attack him, but they’re going to have to argue “Obama,” who just implemented a federal wage freeze, “needs to go farther! He should slash Social Security and defund the EPA!” or something else farther to the right.
The point of triangulation is to seize the most moderate of your opponents’ positions, so that they are left with the more extreme. The Teatards won’t be satisfied? No kidding. That’s the point.
General Stuck
@chopper:
@lol:
It is what is so surreal to insane from our idiot prog overlords. The wingnuts aren’t saying, nor are they motivated by the “weak” “pu&&y” “sellout” Obama meme. And they are the ones who created such a meme to describe in general, liberals. They are pissed that he got HCR and the Stimulus, and a number of other laws passed that they were snookered on. IOW’s putting the lie to leftists whining memes of Obama fail. I’ve said it before, for those of us who care about the actual truth of things, it is like standing in the DMZ between two Clown Armies slinging shit at one another. Some day I hope to wise up and make a run for it.
gene108
@Corner Stone: Yes, I think the bunch of right-leaning, self styled quasi-libertarian sorts, will remember this sort of thing. Symbolic gestures, which you can fit on a bumper sticker, get remembered.
Really complicated actions, which require a paragraph to try and explain, no matter how brilliant or effective, will largely be forgotten or ignored and most likely spun into a complete 180 degrees from it actually is intended to do because people don’t have enough of an attention span.
To get a point through, you have a subject and a verb that should come close to agreeing, when you get into prepositional phrases and what not you will lose most people’s attention.
joe from Lowell
@d.s.:
Uh yeah. That’s what’s going to happen.
Umwut?
chopper
@RinaX:
i also think this whole ‘not getting a non-statutory CPI-based adjustment is the same as a pay cut’ shtick is moronic. i know lots of guys in the private sector who haven’t gotten a raise in 5 years, they don’t run around every time CPI is calculated yelling about how they got dealt another pay cut. that’s what, 60 pay cuts in a row?
lethargytartare
@numbskull: @numbskull:
hey, I was just following your lead and jumping in on somebody else’s argument without knowing wtf I was talking about.
if you click on the hyperlinked handles, you may be able to find your way back to the beginning of this particular thread and figure it out yourself. Let me know if you need some breadcrumbs next time.
Rhoda
@RinaX: It’s sad and pathetic IMO, but whatever. It means far more that the vote on middle class tax cuts happen and that go through than a day of fucked up posts on DailyKos.
This shit is just really simple. Obama has right now a base of 250 electoral votes {WA (11), OR (7), CA (55), NV (5), CO (9), NM(5), MN(10), WI (10), IL (21), MN(17), NY(31), VT(3), NH(4), ME(4), MA(12), RI(4), CT(7), NJ(15), DE(3), DC(3), MD (10), HI(4).
That doesn’t include PA(21) which he’ll likely win and would put him over the top and that is without VA (13) which he’d also likely carry. He also would have a great shot at FL (27) and OH (20).
A permanent middle class tax cut signed by him is a powerful ad on top of many powerful ads (your kids are on your insurance until they’re 26, health insurance companies have to spend 85% of their cash on health care etc). Unlike consevadems, he won’t run from his record and it’s one he can be proud of; especially if the economy keeps growing which is likely even with the lack of stimulus. That’s why Republicans were as angry as the Chinese over the FEDS actions.
But that doesn’t fucking matter because Barack Obama lost control of the narrative and the midterm disaster is all his fault.
joe from Lowell
@chopper:
Can I jump in here?
Because the cratering among indies and Republicans that lol refers to took place over the course of 2009 (and very early 2010). He’d already cratered by a year or so ago.
maus
@Mike Kay (Team America):
You seem to believe that independent acts sway them.
HIDEOUSLY PARTISAN ACTS sway “independent” voters the most. No, not the Paultards, who are still far more rational, the people who decide which person to vote for at the last minute.
Oscar Leroy
This site is just amazing. Some people really think this is a good move, and will defend it. “It will look good on TV!” “It will make Republicans more open to his agenda!” “It will appeal to independents!” Wow.
@lol:
Did you see the voter turnout numbers this election? The Democratic base stayed home in droves. Maybe he ought to get people who voted D in 2008 but didn’t vote at all in 10 excited about his party again?
joe from Lowell
@maus:
Yes. Mainly in a negative way.
Hence, Clinton’s big victory in 1996, after he got the Republicans to act in a hideously partisan way.
chopper
@joe from Lowell:
i hate triangulation. i will admit it worked for clinton and it would work for obama, mostly because their opposition is completely batty.
Oscar Leroy
@Tsulagi:
So you think the Republicans are going to let Obama help his re-election chances in exchange for a freeze on federal wages?
May I ask why?
tomvox1
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
Sorry, your Palinesque syntax was quite confusing. So I take back the due respect part.
What don’t you get, my troll-like friend? Stagnant wages = stagnant economy. Higher middle class salaries = more demand = better economy nationwide. Even a sanctimonious, hair-shirted blowhard like you should be able to figure that out. When the government can do something about that, it should. And in the case if federal employees (yes, yes, you’re not one–makes me kinda glad actually) it is one area of creating direct demand that the government has control over. Not to mention the competitive effect with private enterprise, which could result in higher private sector wages as well, thus lifting many boats. To bypass that action is just plain stupid. Like you, buddy.
Oscar Leroy
LOL! One attack down, 99,999 to go.
Do people here really think Obama can do anything at all to stop–or even lessen–Republican attacks? Fascinating.
10 years ago, Republicans themselves were proposing Obama’s health care reform plan. Now they’re calling it the Devil.
joe from Lowell
@Oscar Leroy:
That happens in every mid-term election.
…which will happen in the presidential election year, when he runs. Just like it does in every presidential election year.
lol
@chopper:
I meant over the past two years. The drop in approval for Obama has come from two sources: Indies and Republicans.
It’s bizarre but Obama had a job approval of 41% from Republicans when he took office. It’s gone down about 30% which was to be expected but it does impact his overall approval. That means a good chunk of the “Obama’s approval has crashed” narrative is artificial to an extent.
The bulk of the rest of the drop came from indies last summer during the health care fight (down ~20%). The whole exercise pissed them off, they stayed pissed off because the economy didn’t get better and then they voted Republican in the mid-terms.
Dems and liberal Dems have gone down a few points but nothing major. The base is happy despite what you read on the blogs.
General Stuck
@Oscar Leroy:
Allow me to answer that. Because it gets indies hard, meaningless gestures to control spending. And Independent voters decide elections in this country. There now, now you know. Lesson over. Let me know if you need another. I like to be helpful.
Oscar Leroy
I guess that’s why we vote for Democrats: so they can stop Republicans from pushing for something by doing it themselves.
Hey, you know what Obama should do next? Outlaw abortion! Then Republicans will stop calling for that, too!
Mysticdog
Wrong!
Almost every penny taxed stays in the US economy. Those pennies that don’t are the ones paying interest on our debt to foreign countries, and foreign aid which is insignificant. Even military spending mostly stays in the US economy, paying soldiers and buying equipment mostly from American companies.
By definition, every penny paid to federal employees stays in the US economy. Or at least starts there; if the employees buy Walmart shite with their paltry incomes, then they send it back out of the country to foreign manufacturers. Ironically, reducing their incomes will tend to make them buy more Walmart shite, so its like a double blow to the economy.
Giving money to rich people sends more money out of the country, because the rich tend to invest it in companies building factories overseas to sell shite to Walmart, or just use the extra crash to create investment bubbles that adds no real value to anything. They also tend to buy high end stuff from foreign countries, vacation in foreign countries, or just hide their money offshore.
Taxing rich people to pay for more government services (like teaching, building infrastructure, and so on) is the surest way to put money in the hands of people who will use it to improve the country and its economy.
joe from Lowell
@Oscar Leroy:
That’s the point. I just explained this to you. Getting Republicans to keep attacking him is the point.
NO! Why is this so confusing to you?
A wise man once said,
Let me know what part of this makes you think “But they’re still going to attack him!” is a rebuttal.
Oscar Leroy
@General Stuck:
So you think the Republicans are going to let Obama help his re-election chances in exchange for a freeze on federal wages?
lol
@Oscar Leroy:
The Democratic base has stayed home every mid-term, including 2006. Check the census statistics.
joe from Lowell
@Oscar Leroy:
NO! Try to follow me here:
If the Republicans call for outlawing abortion, people will hate them. That is an unpopular, radical position, and if the Republicans call for it, it will help the Democrats.
So, if there’s something Obama can do that will get the Republicans to start talking about outlawing abortion, instead of talking about something relatively popular, it is really good politics for him to do that.
chopper
@Oscar Leroy:
jesus, you’re a buffoon.
Oscar Leroy
@joe from Lowell:
Which we can have total confidence he will never do, because it’s not like he pre-emptively gives in to Republicans.
Considering how well frequent capitulation worked out in election ’10, I can’t wait to see what wonders it brings in 2012.
Mysticdog
Also wrong! Most independent voters are not independent, but vote reliably for one party time after time. They call themselves independent to make themselves feel better about themselves, but almost all of them have picked a side.
Getting your base to turn out in elections decides elections. Especially in off year elections, where hardly anyone votes at all. Expanding your base by passionately putting forth a coherent ideology does even more to create a base you can rely on in elections. It is very safe to say that if Obama had been a real liberal and had excited his base, he would still have control of the next Congress and picked up the seats in the senate they thought they would back after the 2008 election.
Elie
@lol:
Sorry — I thought that what swung this election was conservative oldsters voting — combined with moderates, indies, dems and youngsters staying home — not voting republican — NOT voting (not that that is good at all, but a point of difference)
The electorate in this last election was disproportionately older and conservative… not younger folks who actively voted against…
joe from Lowell
@Oscar Leroy:
See, this is why political analysis from someone like you is useless. You don’t understand the difference between moving to the center, and moving to the far right. You don’t understand, even on the level of theory, that there are different purposes, different degrees, and different outcomes, from different strains of modulating one’s position.
You’re one of those people who divides the world into “Giving me exactly what I want,” and “Everything else,” and believes that – hey, look at that, what a coincidence! – “Giving me exactly what I want” just so happens to, always and everywhere, be the smartest political strategy.
For the aforementioned reasons, I’m not terribly interested in what you characterize as “capitulation.” I’ll just note that, in the 2010 elections, the Democrats came out with 192 seats, and the president a 47% approval rating, with 10% unemployment. In 1982, Reagan’s party came out with 166 seats, and he had a 35% approval rating.
General Stuck
@Oscar Leroy:
It is not for republicans. Republicans are going to vote republican no matter what Obama does, or doesn’t do. It is for swing voting independents who decide our elections. Obama does not give one shit what the wingnuts think, or do, or say at this point. He knows full well, the next two years is going to be largely legislation free, save for the routine. And that everything that happens with the wingnuts is posturing for his defeat in 2012, It is their only purpose, and they absolutely will not go along with any proposal, unless it satisfies that singular goal they have. And both the wingnuts and Obama both know that most likely the POTUS reelection of Obama campaign will once again be decided by Independent voters, and about everything that happens is a kabucky show to woo them to one side or the other, and indies care about deficits and cutting spending, and sacrifices and all that good shit. It is how politics works in this country, especially these days. Albeit not in the public interest, and that is due to republican insanity. Period.
John - A Motley Moose
People talk about ‘optics.’ Let’s look at this from a senior’s perspective. The Feds say inflation is non-existent or so low that it doesn’t matter so SS recipients don’t get an increase, which equates to a ‘freeze’ in benefits. Then Fed employees get a pay raise based on what exactly? Inflation? Yeah, that’s a real compelling argument.
Ruckus
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
Aren’t federal worker wage hikes set by the CPI or some other inflation index?
thejoz
It is about time for a 100% reduction in Fake Democrats, throughout the entirety of the Federal Government.
Oscar Leroy
@joe from Lowell:
“If”? They’ve been doing that for decades. Since the early 70s, in fact. Have they been lost in the political wilderness since then?
But I can sure see how taking actions similar to hated positions is a good strategy.
@lol:
Which part of that chart you link proves that?
General Stuck
@John – A Motley Moose:
I think it’s like 1.4% or something. Pretty minor. Federal employees will still get their step increases in grade, and promotions and the like. Stopping those would take an act of congress, and would be more like a wage freeze. But most folks aren’t aware of that, so Obama gets to call it a wage freeze, that is actually a tiny 1.4% ice cube.
d.s.
@joe from Lowell:
By now it should be obvious that triangulation doesn’t work.
When Clinton stole all of the Republicans’ non-insane ideas, we weren’t left with a permanent Democratic majority, we were left with one of the two parties in our two party system that was crazy to the bone without any redeeming positive traits.
Now that Obama is picking off all of the Republican ideas that are somewhat kooky but not enough to get you institutionalized, he’s not going to manage to permanently marginalize the Republicans. It will just shift politics to the right even further.
Cutting federal pay will be the new liberal position. Blowing up federal buildings will be the new conservative position. The moderate position will be a sensible combination of federal pay cuts and tax cuts for celebrity journalists.
Oh, and, two years ago most observers would have laughed at the idea that Republicans would reposition themselves as the staunch defenders of Medicare. If they need Virginia to win in 2012, they’ll run ads in the DC suburbs posing as the strongest defenders of federal pay and benefits. And given the memory span of the electorate, it will probably work.
chopper
@Ruckus:
yeah, but they aren’t statutory i.e. automatic. we don’t have to get them every year. some years we don’t get one at all or it’s smaller than CPI.
Oscar Leroy
@joe from Lowell:
Haha! You think this year’s election was a good result for Democrats! I can’t say how funny I find that.
@General Stuck:
With all due respect, I don’t think you are following the thread of conversation. Someone earlier said this freeze will make it more likely the Republicans let Obama pass some legislation or other that he wants, since he gave them something they want. That’s a dubious proposition, to say the least.
@joe from Lowell:
I’m sorry. Here I thought Obama was making his positions more conservative. In reality, he is using different purposes and degrees for different strains of modulation. The fact that his positions are getting more right-wing is just. . . a side effect, I suppose.
Lee from NC
@Oscar Leroy:
This is the problem. Whatever the reason for this pay freeze proposal, it’s a Republican meme, not a Democratic one. If he wants to win in ’12, he needs to start fighting for Democratic ideas. He continues to piss off the Democratic base.
Great, piss off the unionized Federal employees. And the gays. And progressives. It’s all good ’cause he’s gonna get Tea Partiers to vote for him, right?
Keith G
Wow, I didn’t realize so many B-J’ers were employees of Uncle Sam.
I would wish that the cash represented by those potential raises would stay in consumers’ hands. But it’s not going to happen This is the type of low hanging fruit that is quite irresistible.
This is not the type of battle that the administration needs to waste its resources fighting. The GOP would love for Obama to stand firm against their inevitable push to make the freeze happen. Custer’s Last Stand would be a peaceful interlude by comparison.
And then there is the public opinion, wrong-headed, as it may be, that in times of great hurt public employees should join in the hurt.
The President’s actions make sense.
General Stuck
@Oscar Leroy:
No doubt the musings of one of our progressive wizards.
You are simply too dumb or obstinate to waste time with.
joe from Lowell
@d.s.:
Not that you’re being hysterical, or inaccurate, or anything. We have a one-year freeze on federal employees’ pay increases.
I predict that we will see less triangulation from Obama than we saw from Clinton in 1995-96, because the Republicans are a great deal kookier and more belligerent now than even the Gingrich Republicans in 1994.
chopper
@Oscar Leroy:
who said that?
Oscar Leroy
@d.s.:
It works well enough to get you re-elected–providing you’re in the process of creating 22 million jobs during your term. Kind of like how magic spells will kill sheep, if you feed them arsenic at the same time.
Oscar Leroy
@chopper:
Post #153.
joe from Lowell
@Mysticdog:
That describes about 60% of independent voters, who make up about 40% of the electorate. In other words, about 16% of the electorate is true swing voters.
If you win those true swing voters by 60-40, instead of losing them by that much, that’s a swing of 3.2% of the electorate, which is enough to swing just about any presidential election these days.
lol
@Oscar Leroy:
The part where Obama starts his presidency with approval ratings of 88, 62, and 41 amongst Dems, Indies and GOP respectively and went into the election with approval ratings of 81, 42, and 11.
Doesn’t take a math wizard to figure out where the bulk of that drop from 67 to 45 occured. Hint: It wasn’t amongst Democrats or even the base (which went from 90 to 86).
His base stayed home because the Dem base stays home every mid-term. Guess which groups have a larger drop-off in mid-term voting?
d.s.
@General Stuck: Those “independents” revolted against modest cuts to Medicare targeted at the most wasteful aspects of the program.
They’re not going to give a shit about a pay freeze, and they probably won’t even hear about it. Republicans will continue to insist that Obama is dramatically increasing spending, and most of the media will allow those charges to go unchallenged.
Remember, in 1996 most voters thought that the deficit had increased under the Clinton administration. Why? The Republicans were shrieking about out of control spending louder than ever. No one was dialing up their modem to the CBO web site before they cast their ballot.
The way to get reelected is to deliver good results for most people. It’s not to engage in a bunch of transparent gimmicks to appeal to those elusive independents whose policy preferences mysteriously match those of the DC pundit universe.
Oscar Leroy
@General Stuck:
See post #153.
I know that you call people names because you can’t muster a substantive argument–heck, you can barely type coherently in English, and if this isn’t your native language I apologize–but at least try to understand what people are actually saying before drifting off into your own little world and shouting at the clouds.
joe from Lowell
@Oscar Leroy:
Yes, like most low-information voters, you don’t understand the different between net seats and total seats. Like most low-information voters, you don’t understand that every House seat is up for election every two years. You’re just going to have to trust me on this: 192 is a larger number than 166.
And, like most slow-witted internet commenters, you think that the forced-laughter act is an effective rebuttal when faced with a point you can’t respond to.
It’s harmed them a great deal among the electorate, keeping their majorities down when they were strong, and making their minorities smaller when they were weak. Is it really to much to ask that you understand the concept of multiple variables? At least in theory?
@Oscar Leroy:
Thank you for proving my point.
General Stuck
@joe from Lowell:
You know, I don’t like triangulation either, but what other weapons do dems have? We don’t have a Fox News, nor a fawning press corp in general, like the wingnuts. Nor a loyal nutroots crew. And it works well on wingnuts, who are always prone to fly off into crazy shit. It is why we call them wingnuts, I do suspect.
joe from Lowell
@Oscar Leroy:
Clinton created 22 million jobs in his first term?
Really?
You might wan to check that.
(OK, I’ll help you out. Over 3/4 of those jobs were created after the got re-elected. You’re welcome.)
chopper
@Oscar Leroy:
that’s the best you’ve got? “But maybe Obama is going for “serious person” credentials to bring to the table when meeting with soon to be Speaker Orange.”?
you are a buffoon.
Oscar Leroy
@joe from Lowell:
Okay, so you’re saying the past 40 years have been very, very bad for the Republican party?
And the 2010 election went well for the Democratic party?
I think we all know as much as we need to know about your analysis skills.
Okay, forced laughter doesn’t work. I guess juvenile insults do?
El Cid
@joe from Lowell:
Clintonian triangulation could be seen as many things, but it certainly consisted of passing legislation for goals favored by Republicans while incorporating key Democratic elements and reforms.
(This is different than, say, NAFTA, which was a whole-hearted embrace of Republican legislation and was passed with a Republican majority in both houses against and over a majority of Democrats in both houses.)
There is nothing whatsoever Obama could do to legislation which Republicans would vote for, except possibly passing legislation to defund every social program Republicans hated, removing all taxes for any of the rich or corporations, and to get Joe Biden to resign, appoint Jim DeMint as VP, then resign so DeMint could take over.
I’m not even sure they’d vote for that.
chopper
@Oscar Leroy:
you know, you have this inane ability to read someone’s post and reply with ‘ok, so you’re saying…’ followed by complete gibberish.
Oscar Leroy
@joe from Lowell:
I suppose you don’t understand what the phrase “in the process of” means?
@chopper:
That’s not what “I” have got, it’s what someone else said. So I responded.
Oscar Leroy
@chopper:
I suppose I should do what wise, mature people like you do and just write “you are an idiot” and leave it at that. But I just can’t put as much thought into my posts as you so obviously do. “You’re a buffoon” conveys such depth of understanding, such creative insight, such calm and structured dialectic that most people are simply not capable of a comparable level of induction. Sure, writing “you suck” may look easy, but it obviously takes a lifetime of study and reflection to obtain that intellectual gravitas.
joe from Lowell
@d.s.: If independent voters are so out of reach for Democrats, then why did Obama win them 52-44% in the 2008 election?
There certainly are lots of indies who are reliable for one party or another, but there are also quite a few who are actual swing voters.
chopper
@Oscar Leroy:
right. someone else says half of that, and you ask someone else entirely “So you think the Republicans are going to let Obama help his re-election chances in exchange for a freeze on federal wages?”
it’s like you don’t even know who you’re replying to, and arguing with person A based on what person B said offhand.
Joe Beese
What happened to your faith in Obama’s 11-dimensional chess mastery?
Oscar Leroy
@Mike Kay (Team America):
This place is just too funny. I’m going back to reality now, where the 2010 election was a total disaster for Democrats. Good night and good luck.
chopper
@Oscar Leroy:
i didn’t say you were an idiot. i said you were a buffoon. and yes, you are indeed a buffoon.
Citizen Alan
@joe from Lowell:
So what does it mean for Obama that the Health Care law he signed contains perhaps the single most onerous restrictions on abortion rights enacted by any President since Roe v. Wade (i.e. the Stupak Amendment)?
General Stuck
@d.s.:
No, that was seniors who revolted against modest cuts to medicare, and the fact they chose to believe the white wingnuts over the black Kenyan.
Independents revolted over big deficits and spending, without any visible effort by Obama to do something about that. Now Obama is giving them some red meat, or a small chunk of meat wrapped in a deceptive “wage freeze” package. That federal workers still will get yearly step increases in pay. Long as Obama only serves up morsels, then I will be okay with it. It has been his MO from the beginning with offers to the GOP, and until that changes, I will give the president of my caucus the benefit of the doubt. And It is amazing to me other good libtards don’t do the same.
I get what a lot of you are saying. You are advocating for the democrat version of play to the base strategy only, or the Karl Rove plan, and hopefully win by a 50 + 1 election, or solely partisan campaigning. I don’t think that would work for dems, and it only worked for the goopers a couple of times after a 9-11 with a country in shock and prone to hyperpatriotism.
And please, do not compare midterms with a GE in presnit election years. They are completely different animals with a completely different, or largely different calculus.
joe from Lowell
@Oscar Leroy:
Facepalm.
Ho-lee-shit.
Is it painful to be this stupid, or is it sort of numb feeling?
I’m not going to talk to you anymore, because it isn’t possible for anyone to actually be this stupid. You can only possibly be a parody troll.
Ha ha, very good, you had me going there for a while! Tip o’ the cap.
Citizen Alan
@joe from Lowell:
Well, it helped that he was running against a senile war-mongering lunatic who chose possibly the worst VP candidate in U.S. history as his running mate. And that ticket still get 46% of the vote.
joe from Lowell
@El Cid:
True. Let’s also keep in mind, the Republicans captured both houses of Congress in the midterms, putting Clinton in a much weaker position than Obama is in now.
Both of those factors are going to make it less likely that Obama will support Congressional Republicans’ legislation.
joe from Lowell
@Citizen Alan:
Absolutely nothing, in terms of electoral politics, because the restrictions (which you mischaracterize) simply aren’t a political issue.
I defy you to name a single election in which said restrictions came up in any significant way. One. Impress me.
goblue72
In my non-Internet life, I am in the justly maligned FIRE sector. I put together real estate business deals for a living. (and no, I’m not a broker)
When faced with a counter-party at the negotiating table who has taken a zero-sum negotiating position of absolutist “no compromise”, the only logical position to take against that is an equivalent zero-sum position whereby every gain on either side of the table must be ruthlessly hard fought.
Granted, its an exhausting, unpleasant, often demoralizing process, but its the only option in those circumstances. Why the Obama Administration continues to ignore basic negotiating strategy is completely infuriating.
Case in point – there’s no purpose served by pre-emptively freezing federal workers pay. As noted, the GOP will just come back and demand a pay cut. If Obama had offered up a 10% pay cut, they’d have demanded 20%. This isn’t to say he shouldn’t offer to freeze federal workers pay, but it needs to be in connection with a direct exchange – I freeze federal workers pay while you ok the START treaty. Or the middle class tax cut. Or extending unemployment benefits. Or whatever.
Dollar for a dollar.
Citizen Alan
@joe from Lowell:
Really? The only reason national tort reform wasn’t a part of your precious HCR bill was that the Republicans were so bent on Obama’s destruction that they turned down his invitation to destroy the med-mal bar and give Big Insurance an even bigger windfall than he was already promising them. I really can’t imagine what Republican bills Obama won’t support if he thought it would cause David Broder to give him a pat on the head.
joe from Lowell
@General Stuck:
I
No, the deficit was a very low-priority issue. Independent revolted because the economy sucks.
I don’t think that’s true. I think this is a different strategery.
Kenneth
Just more triangulation from Barack Hoover Obama.
Austerity! Tax cuts! PermaWar! Indefinite Detention! Hope! Change!
He’s toast in 2012. His stimulus wasn’t big enough, he’s too much of a pussy with the Republicans, like Clinton but without the DotCom boom propping him up.
The economy is in the shitter and it’s going to stay there, welcome to the Greater Depression. Hope you guys are ready for President Palin and the total collapse of the USA as we know it.
Interesting times we live in, huh?
chopper
@joe from Lowell:
i think being that stupid is like being high all the time.
Kenneth
Just more triangulation from Barack Hoover Obama.
Austerity! Tax cuts! PermaWar! Indefinite Detention! Hope! Change!
He’s toast in 2012. His stimulus wasn’t big enough, he’s too much of a wuss with the Republicans, like Clinton but without the DotCom boom propping him up.
The economy is in the shitter and it’s going to stay there, welcome to the Greater Depression.
Hope you guys are ready for President Palin and the total collapse of the USA as we know it.
Interesting times we live in, huh?
Citizen Alan
@joe from Lowell:
Wait a minute. So people hate it when Republicans try to limit abortion rights, but when Obama does, it’s not an electoral factor at all? How does that work?
And would you care to name any bills signed into law which provide more onerous limitations on abortion rights (since Stupak will, in time, essentially ban insurance coverage for any type of abortion, including medically essential ones)?
joe from Lowell
@Citizen Alan:
.
No, it didn’t. While it completely befuddles me, John McCain has long been extremely popular among independents. I blame the media.
Yeah, that helped. Possibly the only running mate ever to swing the election by more than a point.
d.s.
@joe from Lowell: I never said they were out of reach. I said that the way to appeal to them is to deliver good results for them.
If unemployment is still high in November 2012 they’re not going to give a shit about V-chips, school uniforms, Sister Souljah moments, or temporary pay freezes. It’s pointless trying those gimmicks.
Kenneth
Obama won in 2008 because the our Owners in the Corporate Class decided they need a tool with a slicker media campaign than Bush, and they got it in spades with Obama.
joe from Lowell
@goblue72:
This isn’t a negotiation with the Republicans. This is a performance for an audience, in competition with the Republicans.
Kenneth
And of course, the American people, being the know-nothing medicare scooter riding obese pigs as Matt Taibbi so pithily describes them, bought into it lock stock and barrel, just like they did with Bush, and will with Sarah Palin.
General Stuck
@joe from Lowell:
I was talking about independent voters, not the GOP. And i already said it was also triangulation back in comment #20
This is likely the biggest reason, though it is also enmeshed into the “tax and spend liberal” meme from the right. Which was implanted into the national brain a long time ago by Reagan. Zombie memes never die, and usually serve to boost mistrust in liberal policy concerning the economy, when those policies don’t work fast enough for impatient Americans.
Kenneth
Face it, folks, the mythical “Amreican Dream” is dead, if it ever even existed for anyone but Our Owners.
ricky
Closing in on three hundred coimments and nary a good word for school uniforms or V-chips. Damned elitist liberals. Must not have kids.
joe from Lowell
@Citizen Alan:
Why do you imagine that this:
is a rebuttal to this:
joe: “Obama is less likely to compromise because the Republicans will refuse to compromise with him.”
Alan: “Oh yeah? Well, here’s an example of when Obama didn’t compromise because the Republicans refused to compromise with him! Explain THAT, smart guy!”
joe from Lowell
@chopper:
High people aren’t generally belligerent. Stupid people are frequently belligerent.
Maybe it’s like tweaking all the time?
joe from Lowell
@Kenneth:
Uh, yeah, Obama’s toast, just like Clinton.
You know that the dot-com boom started in 1997-1998, right?
Joseph Nobles
@Kenneth: “got it in spades with Obama?” Jesu, blow that dog whistle any harder and you’ll break it.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@joe from Lowell: except when people come off their high, often one of the side effects is paranoia.
but a number of people on posts like these are just looking for a fight, and if you ignore them, they go away.
joe from Lowell
@Citizen Alan:
Narratives. It’s the same reason why Obama doesn’t credit for his tax cuts, and why people still think that Reagan shrunk, as opposed expanding, the federal government. Actions that don’t fit the frame of what people want, or fear, from a president from a certain party don’t register as much as actions that fit those preconceptions.
There have actually been books written about this.
No. Don’t jack the thread.
Kenneth
@joe from Lowell:
Unemployment wasn’t 8%+ in 1996 as it will be in 2012. Even the Wall St. economists say it won’t be below 8%.
Seriously, go read my link. If you think this is ANYTHING like the 1990s you’re on LSD.
joe from Lowell
@d.s.:
Ah. OK.
Correct. It’s the economy, stupid. Agreed.
I think you’re misunderstanding how triangulation works. I disagree with the comment upthread about this being “raw meat for moderates.”
Triangulation is about setting up your opponents.
General Stuck
@Kenneth:
I bet there’s a noose and wetsuit hanging in your closet. Amirite?
joe from Lowell
@General Stuck:
Ah, gotcha.
Right. Absent the bad economy, that zombie concern goes away.
Joseph Nobles
@ricky: If we could look for the union label, I’d be all for school uniforms and V-Chips!
(did I get it in under 300?)
dilbert dogbert
@debbie:
HaHa,
My BIL had his wage frozen during Tricky’s reign. So his company just gave him a new title, same job, and a higher salary. Ha Ha. Same old game.
Kenneth
The economy is setting up for a fiscal disaster and implosion the likes of which we’ve never seen. Wait until the 5-year T-bills come due and the Chinese decide not to finance us anymore.
joe from Lowell
@Kenneth:
The rate of change in the unemployment rate is a more important factor than the absolute unemployment rate. Take a look at the unemployment rates when FDR got reelected.
I don’t think Obama will be as dominant in 2012 as Clinton was in 1996, though. My prediction: Obama will be the first president ever, IIRC, to be reelected with fewer electoral votes than he won when he was first elected. While we’re not going to see 1999-era growth, I think we’ll see a meaningful improvement in the economy and a clear upward trend. That, combined with the better demographics of a presidential-year election will put Obama over the top.
General Stuck
@Mysticdog:
I missed your response earlier, due to no comment link.
What you say is largely true, many independents are already leaning left of right. But there is a contingent of these who do vote, especially in presidential election years, who are true “swing voters”. Maybe 10 or at most 15 percent, being folks who barely follow politics other than reading a headline now and then, or having CNN on in the background while they do other shit. While it is a small number, they pick up on memes they hear in the background and make decisions on who to vote for based on this low info mindset. And there are other indies along the edges of this class of voters who could also be included.
They have not always been big deciders in elections, but recent history, the past ten years, they can and have made the dif in our close elections. I think these are the peeps both sides are assuming, based on recent history, will decide the 2012 election. It is one reason, and likely also to push the wingnuts into being wingnutty with triangulation, that Obama is making gestures like these, that seem petty and gimmicky, most likely cause they are, and that get the reactionary part of the dem base up in arms.
Protip – he is not, let me repeat, NOT freezing the wages of federal employees, he is freezing a tiny sliver of a scheduled increase. Federal employees, by civil service laws get yearly increases called steps in grade, and also regular promotions in most agencies THAT WILL NOT BE AFFECTED BY OBAMA’S FREEZE .
El Cid
@joe from Lowell:
I just meant the comment as an “if – then” type view. Obama could support the Republican House legislation, and I’m not sure how much of it they’d vote for. Even if they themselves proposed it. Maybe. Maybe not. Just so as to never vote for anything Obama supported.
Tsulagi
@chopper:
Dunno, but I sure didn’t.
@Oscar Leroy:
Obviously snark, or at least a bare minimum detector for such, is missing from your toolkit.
chopper
@Kenneth:
haven’t you guys been saying that for a decade now? when’s the comet going to rapture you guys up?
Irony Abounds
1. Joe from Lowell is correct on the political aspects of this. The headlines are all that Obama is freezing federal pay. Done after the new Congress gets in the line becomes Republicans force federal pay freeze. And this is big to a somewhat small, but important part of the electorate – the true independent moderate. At a time when private sector jobs are tenuous at best, federal workers who seemingly never can be fired no matter how crappy they may be are not the most popular people out there.
2. In any event, no federal worker is going to go bankrupt because they don’t get COLA for the next two years. The COLA index simply isn’t that high, and making three percent less than you otherwise would have is not the end of the world. State employees are being laid off, getting salaries reduced, or dealing with furlough days. To try and justify continued salary increases for federal employees on stimulus grounds is just silly. It simply isn’t that much money. The critical reaction sounds like knee-jerkism at its finest.
Kenneth
@chopper:
Yes, we have been saying it for a decade, and the crisis started in September, 2008.
We’re not finished yet. It’s drip drip drip. First the financial crisis, then bailouts, then Greece, then Ireland, then Portugal, then Spain, then the Euro collapses, the dollar falls, and then…guess who needs a bailout then?
The federal government.
Who is the only one that can give us a bailout?
The Chinese.
We’re on our way to becoming like Central America in the 1980s.
chopper
@Irony Abounds:
this.
Ruckus
@chopper:
That was my point. And it had been answered down thread before I read that far. But thank you for the answer.
My point was that these are not automatic COL adjustments and they are set by inflation indexes when they happen. And with inflation so low as to be almost non existent the COL adjustments would be very small.
So it becomes a political football
chopper
@Ruckus:
oh, it’s a football all right. if it gets the tax cuts done right i’m happy to see it lobbed about.
Corner Stone
Hilarious. There seems to be no end to the policies and outcomes that some here won’t just excuse away.
I wonder what it would take?
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
no one is excusing anything. It is a gimmicky political stunt in a gimmicky political atmosphere, no more , no less. It might work, and it might not. But what it is not, is a freeze on all federal pay increases of any substance. You can ignore that fact, but it will remain a fact.
But I will say, CS, you have shown remarkable persistence and tenacity for your cause, to get rid of the obama you hate so passionately, for near on 3 years now. I don’t know if it’s true grit, or some kind of sickness, but kudos for sticking with whatever your real motivation is. You are nothing less than a farce of nature
lol
@joe from Lowell:
It’s also a negotiation with conservative Democrats who will still be in office for a few more weeks.
Most of Obama’s “negotiations with Republicans” have always been about negotiating with conservative Democrats instead. It’s just politically valuable to portray those concessions as being to Republicans in order to make them look unreasonable in the press.
Obama has to operate in reality with the Congress he has, not the Congress he wants. This is why firebaggers have been unable to articulate a strategy for passing bills that are more liberal than the ones that actually became law that goes beyond fevered fantasies of John Edwards beating Lieberman’s head in with a baseball bat.
chopper
@Corner Stone:
absolute purity.
Corner Stone
@lol:
Haha! This is precious.
You and your brother joe from LoL have somehow maintained that Republican intransigence hurts them with their audience. It does not.
The only reason independents went for Obama in 2008 is because they had Bush/Iraq fatigue. In 2010 they promptly went back to their natural habitat, which is voting for Republicans.
Republicans have already taken this symbolic puffery and declared how happy they are the President is using their playbook to get started.
Corner Stone
@chopper: Yes, I’m sorry I want a Democratic President to not agree with the Republican myths regarding federal govt workers, not agree with them regarding tax cuts, and not agree with them on the role of govt in the greater economy.
I’m so pure they use me to filter drinking water.
We’ve had two years of compromise and bipartisan rhetoric to the extreme. It got us no Republican votes, a near stagnant economy, and a “shellacking” at the polls.
But I guess if we try it another two years we’ll have a real playbook put together we can show to the American electorate.
Texas Dem
People working for the private sector and for state governments haven’t gotten raises in years. It’s high time the feds suffered right along with the rest of us.
liberal
@Kenneth:
(Paragraphs removed to avoid blockquote fail.)
Not true when the debt is denominated in the domestic currency: the Fed can always print money and hand it to Treasury.
Not a pretty solution, but might unfortunately be necessary, if you look at the history of these things.
chopper
@Corner Stone:
lol. you’re funny.
gregor
Perhaps tomorrow he can announce plans using two million dollars for night basketball in black neighborhoods to combat African Americans’ hooliganism.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Corner Stone:
Apparently not even a front-pager calling this “bullshit” will do it. Maybe if Malia, Sasha, Jesus and Mohammed hold a joint press conference? Captain Picard beams down and says, “the Star Trek future is real but if the Dems don’t change course immediately the timeline will be changed and the Borg will assimilate the Earth”? Katy Perry and Lady Gaga agree to release their sex tape, but only if…? Just throwing out some ideas.
Devildawg
This is partially correct. Those employees that are currently at the top of their pay grade for their position, say GS-11 step 10, will not receive an additional step increase if the position is maxed out. In addition, agencies will be hard pressed to continue promoting people into higher-paying positions if budgets get squeezed as expected (talks around here are that budgets may revert to pre-2008 levels, with the exception of DOD of course).
I’m not that up in arms about the freeze (I’m on the gubmint payroll), but I also think this is a pointless exercise that does not garner much support within the federal workforce. As Stuck says, it is a gimmick, and it is unlikely that it will hurt the Pres., but will definitely not help the administration. My biggest problem with the announcement is that the optics of the move sucks. It reinforces the notion that “big government” and its embedded bureaucratic employees are the problem, causing the ills the deficit and the ruination of the country, rather than addressing the actual budget problems we face as a nation.
But you have to be naive if you didn’t see this coming.
General Stuck
@Devildawg:
You are correct, and it does reinforce winger memes about government service a bit, at least to us liberal true believers. I don’t think most of the public cares, except maybe as what’s fair is fair for all in these hard times. And it also reinforces other memes that I believe dems and especially Obama needs right now, if even a tiny gesture. For all the reasons I mentioned upthread about showing some balance and combating the odious but ingrained “tax and spend liberal” meme. We pol addicts sometimes get captured by our echo chamber and start thinking a big swath of the voting public has worked through the policy and politics as much as we have, and sees the right answer. Most do not, so they are succeptable to memes and countermemes that are, and seem silly and useless to us. But move a lot of low info voters sometimes.
I surely wouldn’t want democrats to adopt something like this position long term and in a more substantial way, but for short term pol gain, don’t see it as some great ideological concession. We don’t have a Fox News, nor anything like it, not to mention talk radio and the msm broadcasting our message. We do have triangulation and a black dude who managed to get himself elected President in this, of all countries. The mid terms were about repercussions of passing bills the right hates, that got them to the polls in higher numbers than dems this time. More a mark of success than failure in my book. But i am but a humble Obot, so take with a grain.
Sloegin
@Texas Dem: When my life sucks, it’s important to drag folks with slightly better circumstances down to my level.
Sure feels good to go after them federales, even if it doesn’t make much economic sense, eh?
I’m one of those state employees who hasn’t gotten a raise in years, I prefer the idea that at least *some folks* besides the rich continue to do ok.
Merkin
@Corner Stone: Wait, freezing pay is a “Republican myth?”
Boy, if they stop being so stir crazy, they may be able to win my vote yet.
Nick
@Citizen Alan:
um, Stupak doesn’t restrict abortion at all, it just takes away funding to subsidize it. Women are still free to have abortions, providing they can afford it.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Ruckus:
Yes, as the only reader here with access to Google, I am happy to look these things up for everybody and help get the facts straight.
It’s the least I can do, don’t you think?
As near as I can tell from a rather quick perusal of the material, most federal civilian employees’ pay is indexed to the ECI, the Employment Cost Index (an index bound to private sector salary data) which is not the same as the CPI (Consumer Price Index) upon which Social Security benefit COLAs are based.
Unless the congress and/or president act to pass a bill or sign an executive order, the ECI binding will theoretically keep federal salaries competitive with private sector salaries.
That was as of a document with a datestamp a few years old, whether this is still the drill, I don’t know.
I continue to be fascinated that all these braying jackasses here would give a shit about this issue. It’s the first time I can ever remember people outside of the government knowing or caring what was going on with federal worker salaries. As near as I can tell from this thread, it’s just another excuse for people to mouth off about Obama just because they can, even though this decision is about as mundane an administrative decision as you could ask of an administrator. This is clerk level stuff. But to read the horseshit here, you’d think the future of the Republic rested on it.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@tomvox1:
Your whole rant is just proof by assertion bullshit.
Presidents and congresses do not map federal employees’ wages for their effect(s) on the economy. Period. Unless you have proof that they do, by virtue of, you know, having actually done so in the past, or, you know, plotting to do so now, please shut the fuck up and shove this nonsense deep up your stupid ass.
Federal wages are all about federal wages. I know that such a simple and elegant concept is beyond your ken, but try to wrestle with it. A thing just being what it is and not what your fevered and plaque-clogged brain thinks it is.
Console
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
The fact that government budgetary decisions are made without regard to anything outside of the government’s bottom line is wholly separate from the fact that that is a stupid way to run government.
It’s stupid to make tax policy solely for revenue without regard for the wider economy, likewise it’s stupid to make administrative government decisions without the same regard.
A few years ago the government cut air traffic controller pay 30 percent. This pushed people out of the job and caused a staffing shortage, which led to record delays. Those delays cost the economy billions of dollars… all to make some budget line look nice. Who really wins out in that? Some government bureaucrat (in the most real sense) that gets to say “Here mr. president, I saved a billion dollars in my agency.” Simple administrative decision… yes. But still really fucking stupid and you all as taxpayers are still paying the price for it. But yippie, you really stuck it to us public employees.
BTW, the GS scale pay increase is meant to be 5 percent less than the private ECI increase. The pay rates are comparable… but not really competitive. And that’s pretending that the executive branch doesn’t routinely unilaterally impose pay cuts like the one described above. “Theoretically” is the perfect word choice.
chopper
@Devildawg:
actually, i think they will receive a step increase, just no raise commensurate with it.