The headlines this week were focused on President Obama again. Luckily, they were willing to look beyond his busted lip which he suffered in a pick-up basketball game during the Thanksgiving holiday. Most of the articles managed only to mention that he had noticeable stitches in his lip as he walked up to the speech podium then proceeded to the actual news at hand.
Obama announced that the civilian federal staff in this country will be held to a pay freeze. This will save the country over $2 billion by the end of the current fiscal year and can save $28 billion over the next five years. We’re finally seeing a solid attempt from this administration to hack away at the more than $14 trillion in federal debt.
There are those who will fight this motion. It’s coming at a time when no one wants their salary to be tampered with, but this is different. A pay freeze doesn’t lower salary, but prevents raises. These raises are usually standard increases to a federal employee’s income. This hold is much more manageable than losing your job altogether, which a lot of American’s have gone through in this tough economic climate.
If we focus on what happened to the large corporations in this country at the beginning of the financial crisis it shows that this was bound to happen sooner or later, unfortunately it was the latter. Companies such as GM, AIG, Fannie Mae and others were forced into new structure. The executives had to take pay cuts, their bonuses were frozen and some even saw the termination of their employment.
It took about half of Obama’s term in the White House to stop and look at his own company. The United States of America in this scenario is, without a doubt, a company. With individuals prospering off of a system that allows for personal advancement through the company ladder, it was only a matter of time before the system broke.
Some of the people who will complain about their pay freeze were probably the first to say they are team players and they will do whatever they need to do for the benefit of the country. Now that this will affect their checking account, they might be singing a different tune. To those individuals, you need to suck it up.
We don’t have the room or the time to deal with noncompliance on this level. By leveling out our spending at the national level, we have given ourselves an opportunity to work our way out of this giant hole that we’ve dug. It’s going to take a lot of sacrifice from a plethora of citizens, but if you’re called upon to do so, then you should comply. These employees are still going to get their pension plans, their benefits and all of the other perks which apply to someone who works in the public sector. They will be much better off than those who were in the private organizations and lost their source of income altogether.
This is a step in the right direction and hopefully won’t be the last from the current White House staff. Moving forward with this plan is a great idea and should be encouraged at multiple levels, not just federal. The state of Connecticut should take a look at what is happening on the federal level and take notes. For the first time in an inordinate amount of time, we’re going to have a shrinking budget deficit, and that’s worth some praise.