Liberals Shriek At Obama's "Pay Freeze", Demand Raises Instead

A new definition of chutzpah:

Representatives of three liberal advocacy groups on Monday blasted President Obama’s proposed two-year freeze on federal civilian worker pay.

John Irons of the Economic Policy Institute, Tamara Draut of Demos and Greg Anrig of The Century Foundation said it is a mistake to freeze pay until the economic recovery from the recent recession has taken hold more firmly.

“We think that is a terrible idea. We should be raising wages,” Irons said in a press call. “It is unclear why the president would want to do this.”

“It reinforces the concern we have that the focus has shifted from creating jobs to deficit reduction. It is far too soon to be doing that. We need to be focusing on ways to lower 9.6 percent unemployment,” Anrig said.

Well, how about lowering taxes on businesses, Mr. Anrig? Ah, no, sorry - Anrig's plan (in the linked article) for American financial sovereignty is a stew of 1/3 spending cuts (military?), 1/3 tax increases, and 1/3rd the elimination of tax breaks. Or, in other words, 2/3rds of his plan to pay federal workers more while lowering the deficit involves hiking taxes on people other than federal workers.

And why is it OK to ask struggling Americans, who are having to stretch their dollars more and more and each paycheck, to fork over even more of their money so that federal employees can get raises? Alas, the Irons/Draut/Anrig triumvirate has no reasonable answer for that, just as they have no logical way to explain how massive tax increases would lower unemployment.

We can boil the liberal argument in this case down to three words: "GIMME GIMME GIMME"!

Sorry, ladies, it ain't gonna fly any more. You had two years of Hope, now here comes Change. And you don't have to believe in it to see that it is barrelling down the tracks, and aimed dead-center at your public extortion racket.

Maybe they do. Thus the panic, the shrieking, the loss of rationality. If we are to judge a man - or a union - by how they face adversity, it appears as if liberals, and federal employees, will come out of this crisis with less respect than they had going in.

Which is saying a lot.

More liberal angst at TPM ( "We risk not hiring good people, we risk not giving a raise to people who deserve a raise" - yes, it's a risk in a risk-based economy, it's called "capitalism") and at the Washington Monthly ( "To grow the economy, we need workers to have more money in their pockets, not less. A pay freeze is an anti-stimulus." OK, I agree. So you are against all tax hikes, rate increases, and new revenue-enhancing fees as well, right? Right? Hello?)

Classic...