Monday, November 29, 2010
Obama Proposes a Pay Freeze for Federal Workers
Obama has decided to address the huge federal deficit by initiating a two-year freeze plan for federal employees. This plan would take away the raises that federal employees were expecting to receive for the following two years. While this plan is not expected to take care of the national debt, it will make a small dent. It may also be the beginning of several future proposals that tackle the debt. Republicans are satisfied with Obama's plan, their only critique being that it is not aggressive enough. This may be a good sign that Republicans and Democrats will be able to work together to help solve this monumental issue.
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2 comments:
Though the federal pay freeze will help make a dent in the federal debt as Emily suggests, there needs to be a real effort to cut entitlements and the defense budget. The Washington Post recently released a series of special reports on the defense and intelligence community and what they discovered is that there is a lot of waste in the defense budget. Too many agencies perform the exact same functions as other defense/intelligence agencies and not enough information is shared quickly due to the enormous size of the defense community. If Republicans are serious about budgetary reform, the best place to start is our over-inflated and wasteful defense budget.
A majority of our federal deficit and debt will come from entitlement spending on Social SEcurity and Medicare. As our population greys it becomes even more essential for policymakers to stand up and make tough decisions about reforming entitlements to ensure the new wave of Baby Boomer retirees don't bankrupt the nation. Raising Social Security eligibility ages or decreasing the amount of Medicare or Social Security payments available for higher income citizens would be a good start for transforming entitlements to more sustainable levels.
I agree (as Will pointed out) that spending on Medicare and social security are primordial targets for reforms if the GOP is serious about addressing the national dept. However, cutting back on medicare and social security could prove detrimental for the party because elderly vote. They are very good at organizing and can potentially maintain or dissolve the GOP majority in Congress.
Taking that into consideration, the party is somewhat gridlocked and its only dominant strategy is to do nothing or to target other areas such as the defense and intelligence community as Will suggested.
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