Barack Obama says he’s going to freeze all federal workers’ pay for two years, so maybe they will get an idea of what it’s like to have a private-sector job in America, where all wages outside of Wall Street and Silicon Valley have been frozen since the Recession began way back in 2008. But one very special group of federal workers won’t see any pay freeze at all: Military brass! Those uniformed heroes who work for America’s Permanent War Machine will continue to enjoy all the nice raises and benefits they’ve come to expect while doing whatever it is the Pentagon does with basically all of the nation’s tax money.
Of course, the Americans who get blown up and shot to pieces in our myriad imperial wars still face pretty lousy pay, endless redeployments, and families abandoned to the vagaries of apartment life on or near the bases. And life as a veteran is still fairly terrible for many who come back from the wars with physical or mental injuries. But at least the brass will continue to be richly rewarded for …. uh, losing wars everywhere and ruining America and inspiring nothing more than Xmas Tree bomb attempts (with the FBI’s help, as far as the “bomb part”). [NYT]
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Wanna see if Congress also freezes their pay?
Those aren't raises, as a raise would be unconstitutional (as per the Twenty-Seventh Amendment). Those are instead "cost of living adjustments."
How about the Congressional staffers?
if the military brass isn't adequately compensated, they'll all quit and go off to work for wall street.
as if they didn't already.
The head Military brass does not earn enough to play the street.
you're one of the palin kids, aren't you. which one are you? willow? no, not willow? balsa? bamboo? dutch elm? scrub oak?
Either little Rose or one of the pricks.
I think she's Sarah II/Jr./Lil' Trig.
I think Lil'' Trig is like Barry on Family Guy, one day he will get a gravely voice a few octaves below the Tuba and start pointing guns at people making them play board games with him.
How many more ex-generals can Fox (in the hen house) News employ
You might want to take a look at military pay scales at http://www.dfas.mil/militarypay/militarypaytables... . The highest pay a general can earn (outside of the Chair and Vice Chair of the JCS or the Chief of Staff of one of the services) is ~ $144,000 / year. A job with that level of responsbility in the private sector would pay 5 times that minimum. Nobody joins up with or stays in the military for the money.
I had to take a 5% cut two years ago. I'm seeing half of it restored as of 1/1/11. This isn't even a real pay freeze – they'll still all get increases, just not as much as they would have otherwise.
Starting to take the Bible literally: "Those who have much will receive even more and those who have little, even the little they have will be taken from them." I can give chapter and verse, if you doubt me.
the book of goldmansachs, chapter one, verse one.
So sayeth the Pentagon. Amen
Its wish is our command.
Cue Snowbilly Barbie in 3, 2, 1…
Crazy eyes Bachmann just started singing "You've got a friend in me" over on the twitter.
My friend is a lit road flare. How's that, Michelle?
at least they don't have commission-based salary, including bonuses for each "death of foreign civilian." that just wouldn't be logical. this on the other hand, clearly…
What do you mean 2008? For all practical purposes, in most sectors, workers' pay has been frozen since, like, 1986. Not so for corporate management, which is the brass of industry.
Every raise I ever got from about the ronnie raygun era until I left the workforce in 2007 was negated by either the next higher income tax bracket, higher health insurance costs or higher union/acorn dues.
Why are you paying money to Acorn?
I think if you do the math, you will find that wages for better than 80% of americans have been frozen, or dropping, since about 1973.
I just hope Obama hasn't decided to jump on the Chris Christie bandwagon of stoking resentment against government workers on account of them having health insurance and being able to retire before they die and all these outdated things that just aren't part of the average american's life under the new, shitty normal.
If Chris Christie is involved, I think stroking should be the optimal phrase. 'Cause he's faaaaaaat. Also.
Rick Scott's going that route, and right quickly.
There is a difference between a teacher retiring after 35 years of work and getting a 40k a year pension and a police officer retiring after 20 years of work and getting a 60k a year pension.
This makes me think Obama has jumped on the Jimmy Carter bandwagon, the one with the big banner that says "This way to certain political death"
So, yea. McCain would have made this mess so much worse I try not to think about it but this is so craven, so much a raw political move and just offers the Republicans the opportunity to say "Hey!! how about a wage CUT!! How about a 10% work force reduction" or something even more creative so that all the resentful pinheads out in resentful pinhead land can … oh WTF, do whatever they do – someone else fill in the blank.
Thanksgiving followed by despair, what will Christmas be followed by?
(And NO!!, Presidents Day is NOT FUNNY!!)
That's a real shame for Liberty. The 'jazzle made it feel oh, so good when Abraham Lincoln (of The Memorial fame) mounted her.
I was just told – literally, in actual words – by a federal employee/small government advocate/deficit hawk that it is absurd that her pay would be frozen, when there's all this government waste, out there, somewhere, and if the government would just cut it, whatever it is, that would reduce and/or eliminate the deficit. I had a good, face-to-face snarky mock at her expense. Felt good.
The stupid is strong with her.
Hahahahahaha!
I regularly encounter the same delusion but it's like arguing about religion; that's the way it is, Palin/Hannity/Limbaugh said so, end of discussion…
I know what you mean…I hear a lot of raging about welfare queens from people who once saw a person buy name-brand cereal with food stamps.
This summer waiting in line at the Walmart bakery for a sheet of 4th of July cookies there was a woman getting a birthday cake for her kid, when she whipped out her food stamp card to pay for it, the man behind me barked at her, causing me to turn quickly around, catching a whiff of cheese powder and hair gel I faced a man of tremendous girth in a sweat suit making the 'hurry up' motion with his hand. There were numerous empty McDonald's wrappers in the top basket and the cart was burdened with a vast cornucopia of processed food.
He than started complaining at length that poor people should not be allowed to eat anything except healthy foods on food stamps, it was just too much, so I started chuckling and pointing at him, calling him a monster and what not. He did not take kindly to my affront to his dignity, which unlike his pants was not elastic. We caused such a ruckus security asked us both to leave, lol.
My cousin the US Marine lt. colonel has learned not to bitch out loud about having to pay taxes. Not around me, anyway.
and earn twice the salary.
…while collecting their military pension.
Which you can get with 20 years in, so we have 38 year olds making pension plus 200k+ a year contracting now.
Don't remind us.
(It's official now, it's a catch phrase.)
This is why I come to Wonkette. That's a whole string of WINs, right there.
The contractors need a representative and two senators to make sure their tiny voices are heard. They are all so poor they are unable to hire lobbyists and buy off legislators. Poor things. Bless their hearts.
Lt. Dan can rest easy…
Back in the early 80s, Uncle Ronnie didn't give us military types a pay raise one year, but that was so he could finance the B-1B program and the 600-ship fleet. We were so happy!
Fuck. Does that mean the Post Office will be EVEN slower???
Yeah, riiiiight. Just like RAND Corporation, only with uniforms and little red-white-and-blue trucks.
What the hell is the post office?
I only hope that the brass will be contributing to the nation's coffers when the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy expire.
Ah, the wing-nut's favorite form of socialism will not suffer because…how does that go…freedomz isn't free? (Ok fine, it's not free, but does it have to cost trillions?)
According to the W$J, Congress is so poor that it has to live in its offices: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703...
Of course, I have to live at the office just to keep my job.
I haven't seen a raise in three years, so my pity pot runs dry for government employees having to deal with the same issues that I have.
But it warms the cockles of my heart to hear that the Tea Baggers are now bombing their recently elected Congresscritters with letters demanding that they do not accept their Federally Funded Health Insurance.
Shit. I'll take a pay freeze over the 8% hit we took at my place of employment….something tells me that, in Amerika, the "folks with the weapons" generally get a few more schillings…
I hope those pay cuts at your place are actually saving some jobs, and not going to the brass in the form of bonuses.
In my little business, we had a slightly better year than last, so everyone got a a little bit of a raise and more hours, except the top guy. (That would be me. I actually took my 'bonus' in vacation days. Woot! First year since I've been here I actually took a week's vacation!)
You must be a Republican since Republicans are so good to small businesses and Democrats just want to nationalize businesses and send the owners to FEMA camps.
So then we're going to extend un-employment benefits, right? Oh, he just gave away the cart before the horse again? Whew! Thank goodness the "jawb creators" taxes won't go up either. Umm.didn't we WIN in '08? Grow, find or steal a pair please.
If you really look at the statistics, wages for the non-elite have actually declined since 1243 when the average peasant household received two clumps of sod and a bowl of thin gruel per week. In 2010, that figure is roughly 1.75 clumps of sod and about half a cup of gruel. And the gruel is thinner.
Yes, but it's fortified with High Fructose Corn Syrup!
I, for one, welcome our return to a feudal system ruled by our moneyed overlords. I pledge my fealty in return for allowing my Lord the right of prima nocta and working the fields in poverty for eternity. Amen.
Then you should live in Pakistan! They still have a feudal system there! http://www.landandfreedom.org/news/040803.htm
Military coups, terrist training camps, AND feudal lords? When it comes to tourism, Pakistan is South Asia's answer to South Florida. In the mid-80s.
That's the sort of social system our elites want.
But now we have Brawndo (with electrolytes). That makes up for everything.
I'm DoD, and was told a couple weeks ago no bonuses this year. We might still get a cost-of-living adjustment, haven't seen anything about it yet, but I'm not holding my breath. I haven't heard of step increases being frozen, but I'm at the point where I only get a step increase every three years and just got my latest one in September, so I will look forward to the same amount in the biweekly direct deposit for the foreseeable future. Oh well, can't complain too loudly, at least I have a job.
Yeah, me too.
DoD eh? Can you get paid in guns and ammunition? There's a good market for that.
Yeah, I will get my new F-22 next month, but I have to work until the year 2354 in order to pay it off and get the title signed over to me.
Put up on cinder blocks in front of the house until the title come thru.
Daily 3:00 PM sponge baths administered by OPM.
Have you ever met an OPM examiner? They start work at 10am, then stay late at night for some reason. Most tend to be True Believers in whatever the line is that year. I've only see a couple who might be intriguing sponge bathers.
Friends who work for the Feds view OPM as the enemy of rational hiring.
BIG GOVERNMENT! BIG GOVERNMENT! *
* = Except for the part of government that is the Military. That's perfect and only needs to get bigger.
A country's military is like a country's dick, you want to have a big one so you can wave it around impressively and shake it at other countries who give you shit. And the best thing is, unlike a person's actual dick, if you spend enough, you really can make your military bigger! You can make it so big, it eats up all the resources the rest of your body needs to live, and then your military dick becomes like a cancer, and it will kill you. You'll be dead, but you will have a giant dick, and whats more important than that?
Well, there's always a career in porn. Or wait, I've lost track of the metaphor. Is there a military equivalent of porn that's not a Bill Kristol column?
Are you saying those penis-enlargement nostrums don't work? This is terrible news.
Don't remind me.
So, the US is having a 3some with two pussies, Irack and Afghanistan, while flirting with Packistan?
Can't we just get a magnificent codpiece?
Doctors and generals, two groups I believe should be paid based on performance.
Our military's officer corps has to be the laziest, least qualified bunch of yahoos on anyone's payroll. How often do one of these fucktards make press for some dumbass birther/bigoted stance about Obama/Muslims/women/gays? It doesn't say much for the group if the only bunches of people more likely to embarrass themselves publicly are drunks and the chronically unemployable.
What does the average infantryman make?
I think it's high time we institute a private government, so that competition can occur and everyone will feel the pleasure of sitting around bleeding to death.
This is an outrage. The heroes of the TSA deserve pay raises! Have you looked at the induhviduals they are forced to grope each and every day?
"We want to get as close to Rayburn as possible," Mr. Griffin, an Arkansas Republican, told an aide. "I've got to walk all the way down this hall in the morning."
Walk?
Where's your mobility scooter?
When Mitch McConell said his #1 priority was to ensure that Barack Obama is not re-elected, what he actually meant to say is that his #1 priority is that Obama not be re-elected as a Demcorat. I predict that by 2012 Obama will have switched parties and be able to point to his long record of GOP policy successes, starting with a Health Care reform plan devised by the American Enterprise Institute to raising the Social Security retirement age to 117 (coming in 2011).
Obama cleverly denies Republicans political victories by doing what they really want anyways.
AKA full cavity search?
If you are at the top of your pay grade, you can't get a step increase. I'm a fed at the top of my grade level, but no complaint here about the freeze.
Well, he hands you a nickel
He hands you a dime
He asks you with a grin
If you’re havin’ a good time
Then he fines you every time your salary rises to the private sector floor
I ain’t gonna work for Uncle Sammy no more
No pay cuts for contractors. They get bonuses! Even if they suck they get bonuses!
Is the plural of bonus, bonuses or boni?
I'm in local gov't and got a pay freeze, step freeze and a 10-day furlough this year. Zip it whiny feds, you're not doing so bad.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/11/battered-bu...
see page 24 and cringe.
Nice move Obama, but its not enough. If you really want to stimulate the economy, you should lay off at least 10 percent of federal employees, because it's well known among financial mucky-mucks that the fastest way to economic recovery is to lay off tons of people and cut their pay. It worked in 1929, and it will work now if the Socialists just got out of the way so the small businessman can start marketing their products to the starving and desperate masses.
HOBO BEANS FOR EVERYBODY!!
OK……..for everybody who can pay.
Obama thinks this will stop the inevitable coup.
But it won't. The generals will revolt for War and Jesus!
Coffee is for closers.
Welcome to the race the bottom. Where middle class people point fingers at each other about who has it better. Maybe instead of going after gov't workers who have things like a pension and healthcare, we should try and get more working Americans to have the same. Naw….. doesn't fit in with the supply side republican economics. So look out you government workers with your paychecks and houses, those days are numbered. Meanwhile the top 1% should be taking home about a third of all the wealth in another decade, while the middle and working class snipe at each other.
It's the same principle that gives us NAFTA.
The real problem is that the American standard of living isn't low enough yet. Once living conditions match Mexico, we won't have an immigration problem any more.
In 2011, let us all work harder for a smaller piece of a smaller pie so that CEOs and Wall Street assholes will get a ridiculous sized bonus for forcing layoffs and sending jobs overseas. American capitalism. It's faaantastic!
"I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half."
Jay Gould, US financier & railroad businessman (1836 – 1892)
The beauty of the 21st century is that they don't have to be paid, they do it pro bono.
Change we can believe in! After all, GW Bush didn't do anything so dumb!
Meanwhile, the vice president of Azzabakwardstan steps out of a solid gold limo with 50 million bucks in US taxpayer currency on his way to the New Blow Shit Up In Cool Ways showroom.
Why don't they freeze nighly emptying of Congressional offices' wastebaskets? Within 4 days there'd be legislation to offer a retroactive Medal of Honor to every janitor in DC. Oh and it's always lovely when the white folks get to fuck over the browns, especially when they get a half brown to help them.
Clearly the military has been bogged down in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the past nine years because it keeps hiring terrible soldiers and it doesn't have an effective process for terminating them. It needs an infusion of private sector management mavens and hedge fund managers to make everything right along with small-unit competition – see who can build the best branch of service! Generals as CEOs!
Shit, that's education, those wealthy people won't go somewhere where they could potentially take a round in the ass.
YES!! Draft the libertarians!!, They'll know how to run the wars! Oh. wait.. there's a problem here, isn't there?
Kinda OT, but someone came into my office today to complain about the country's march toward the evil socialism. The response to my question "in what way?" was "I heard it on the news and from other people that we're becoming more socialist." So of course, I had to ask for three examples of how the country is moving in that direction. I didn't get a single example that was not summarily shot down by "Uh, no, that's not socialism, and here's why…"
And they left persuaded? No?
When idiots stop by to offer their unsolicited, pea brained "thoughts", I mouth, "important prospect", whisk them out with finger motions and a VERY SERIOUS LOOK on my face & indicate that they should close the door behind them.
Then I put my head back on the desk.
Yeah…its too bad that we dont cut the Military off FIRST.
It would be a great idea to cut them off FIRST- that way, you anti-military wackos would find out what it is like without them.
What's your problem? That's sounds like commiepinko PACIFIST talk to me.
BTW; You sweet little dears…Our dear leader, the moonbat messiah is going to mandate that they pay a large portion of their healthcare. (The Military) Ooops, I forgot….The "NAZI Occupiers" Sorry… I am not too good about that political correctedness….
Maybe some of you darling people need some schrapnel charred up your patutie, and then we'll see how ya'all will NEVER gripe about having to pay for something like that yourselves.
If you're going to disrespect US soldiers, go do it somewhere else.
You're also not too good about facts. SecDef is debating whether or not to increase Tricare fees on RETIREES, which have not risen since '95; it is a battle that he has picked in three of his past four budgets. There is no projected change to fees for active duty service members.
HEY! HEY! NO FAIR USING FACTS! Sheessh, do I have to explain everything to you.
Needs moar teatard caps.
Channeling his inner Ronnie Raygun?
doh! that was obvious.
Pretty good set up, eh?
we'll be here all week, folks.
Don't remind us.
That kenyan pirate had burn well not be freezing the wages of no Christian Ministers deployed and employed by the govt, or he is going to have multi-amendment Constitutional Troubles on his hands, not the least of which will be 1st Amendment Constitutional Troubles!
How come Pat Robertson and Benny Hinn and the rest of them can't just HEAL the economy?
Yeah! Splash some holy water on that mofo and pass the loot!
Preacher Robertson and Preacher Hinn do not have the Power of Economic Salvation, silly! The Nigerian Fraudster destroyed the economy on purpose with wasteful recovery act spending and has since repudiated God's Guiding Hand!
In contrast, God repaired the economy each time Gov Pres George W Bush and his father destroyed it because they PRAYED to Him for help!
What do all those Health&Wealth preachers like Creflo Dollar say? Or Rev. Ike, if anyone can contact him in the next world?
I always suspected GW Bush's economic plans involved the Health&Wealth Gospel.
First they came for the contractors, and I said nothing, because I'm a lousy, poor Peasant-American…
You mean the XE gunslinger types? Or the unemployed truck-drivers desperate enough to take a chance on Iraq?
Banning earmarks is not critical because of the money that's directly involved. It's critical because earmarks are used as bribes to secure votes for other matters that cost far more, such as the healthcare bill. That's why earmarks need to be banned.
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