Freeze Frame: Lift the Federal Pay Freeze

Yeah, maybe I've given Obama a pass on some stuff that was borderline questionable -- my previous defense of his has certainly been debatable.  But this freezing of the pay of federal employees strikes me as stupid, both economically (which I concede is an area in which I have no expertise), and politically.

$28 billion over five years?  The national debt is in the range of $11 trillion.  The deficit is in the $1-2 trillion neighborhood.  There are one-thousand billions in a trillion, so you do the math.  $28 billion sounds good... until you compare it to the monster of the debt. 

Aside from what I'm sure amounts to voodoo economics, I think this is poor politics.  It was a fig leaf, of sorts, from Obama to the Republican Congressional leadership.  I'm sure he expected something in kind. 

He'll be waiting a good long while. 

Listen, I understand the President is a creature of the United States Senate (and the Illinois Legislature before that), what was once called "the most deliberative body in the world" without people laughing.  He wants to craft the deal, strike the bargain, find the palatable middle road.  This is why I've given him such a pass in the past, because I think that is how government works best.  The volume of his early legislative victories as President is a testament to that idea. 

But there's a time for conciliatory negotiations and there's a time to roll up your sleeves and fight. 

Now is the time to fight.  Obama has the hope in him.  But does he have the fight? 

Frankly, I think federal employees deserve a fight -- and they're not going to get it.  The every day working people of the federal government -- who make 24 percent less than their counterparts in the private sector -- just got used as a political chit. 

I'm not in the federal workforce anymore, but I am a part of an increasingly struggling (and rapidly vanishing) middle class, and I'm tired of being used as a chit, too.  How about someone stand up for what's actually good for us economically?  And while they're at it, the poor could use a hand, too.