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WASHINGTON — President Obama announced a two-year pay freeze for civilian federal workers on Monday as he sought to address concerns over sky-high deficit spending and appeal to Republican leaders to find a common approach to restoring the nation’s economic and fiscal health.
“The hard truth is that getting this deficit under control is going to require some broad sacrifice and that sacrifice must be shared by employees of the federal government,” Mr. Obama said at a White House news conference.
“I did not reach this decision easily,” he said. “This is not just a line item on a federal ledger. These are people’s lives.”
He called federal workers “patriots who love their country” but added that “I’m asking civil servants to do what they’ve always done” and sacrifice for the good of the nation.
The president’s proposal comes a day before he hosts Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders at the White House to begin mapping a way forward after midterm elections handed Republicans control of the House and six more seats in the Senate. The meeting, which was delayed when Republicans rebuffed Mr. Obama’s first proposed date, will be the first time since the midterms that the defeated Democrats and the triumphant Republicans sit down to figure out whether they can work together.
The pay freeze will save $2 billion in the current fiscal year that ends in September 2011, $28 billion over five years and more than $60 billion over 10 years, according to Jeffrey Zients, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget and the government’s chief performance officer. That represents just a tiny dent in a $1.3 trillion annual deficit but it offers a symbolic gesture toward public anger over unemployment, the anemic economic recovery and rising national debt.
“At a time when our nation’s seniors have been denied a cost-of-living increase and private sector hiring is stagnant, it is both necessary and quite frankly long overdue to institute a pay freeze for the federal workforce,” Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican who is likely to become chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a statement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/us...freeze.html?hp
Sorta begs for de-construction, doesn't it
“The hard truth is that getting this deficit under control is going to require some broad sacrifice and that sacrifice must be shared by employees of the federal government,” Mr. Obama said at a White House news conference.
“I did not reach this decision easily,” he said. “This is not just a line item on a federal ledger. These are people’s lives.”
He called federal workers “patriots who love their country” but added that “I’m asking civil servants to do what they’ve always done” and sacrifice for the good of the nation.
The president’s proposal comes a day before he hosts Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders at the White House to begin mapping a way forward after midterm elections handed Republicans control of the House and six more seats in the Senate. The meeting, which was delayed when Republicans rebuffed Mr. Obama’s first proposed date, will be the first time since the midterms that the defeated Democrats and the triumphant Republicans sit down to figure out whether they can work together.
The pay freeze will save $2 billion in the current fiscal year that ends in September 2011, $28 billion over five years and more than $60 billion over 10 years, according to Jeffrey Zients, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget and the government’s chief performance officer. That represents just a tiny dent in a $1.3 trillion annual deficit but it offers a symbolic gesture toward public anger over unemployment, the anemic economic recovery and rising national debt.
“At a time when our nation’s seniors have been denied a cost-of-living increase and private sector hiring is stagnant, it is both necessary and quite frankly long overdue to institute a pay freeze for the federal workforce,” Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican who is likely to become chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a statement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/us...freeze.html?hp
Sorta begs for de-construction, doesn't it
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