President Obama takes a first step toward downsizing government.

Nov 30, 2010
WSJ

American Federation of Public Employees President John Gage yesterday derided President Obama’s federal pay freeze as a “slap at working people.” It might better be described as a small but symbolic first step toward reining in a ballooning federal payroll that is a slap at the non-government workers who pay the bills.

Mr. Obama proposed a two-year pay freeze for all civilian federal employees, a move that will save taxpayers $2 billion in fiscal 2011 and $28 billion over five years. (Congress must approve it.) As cost-cutting goes, this is modest: The freeze doesn’t extend to new hiring, bonuses or step increases. It doesn’t even match the three-year freeze recommended by the President’s deficit commission. But it is more than this Administration has ever been willing to consider, and it suggests that Mr. Obama, post-midterm-shellacking, realizes he must show some willingness to restrain the growth of government.

It certainly needs restraint. As the nearby table shows, federal employment has grown by a remarkable 17% since 2007 to an estimated 2.1 million nonmilitary full-time workers (excluding 600,000 postal workers). This is the largest federal work force since 1992, when civilian employment at the Pentagon began to shrink rapidly after the Cold War.

These federal employees operate in a pay-and-benefit universe that no longer exists in the private economy. According to recent analyses by USA Today, total compensation for federal workers has risen 37% over 10 years—after inflation—compared to 8.8% for private workers. Federal workers earned average compensation of $123,000 in 2009, double the private average of $61,000. Unions like to argue that federal jobs are unique, yet in occupations that exist both in government and the private economy—nurses, surveyors, janitors, cooks—the federal government pays 20% more than private firms.

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