This is a good start. Now cut salaries of those like School admins and the likes, cut salaries of those defense contractors, cut salaries of those city councils and we’ll make a nice hole in that debt for a couple of years.

Damn fire the defense contractors!

Oh, goody! Does that mean that the Congresswhores get their pay frozen too?
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Yeah, right. That’s what I thought.

“The chairman of Obama’s bipartisan deficit commission has proposed a three-year freeze in pay for most federal employees” There is no bipartisan commission, the commission is made of up entirely wealthy bankers, if it were bipartisan it would include working people

I agree, we don’t need over 1200 of these leeches spying on us domestically anyways.

Actually it is 14 Republicans and 4 Democrats. I don’t know the job or economic breakdown.

Obama has a great strategy. He is pitting civil servants against all those working crappy jobs, those who have not received raises in years, unemployed workers, etc. And those people are with Obama and don’t even realize what is happening.

Unless they allow the tax cuts for the rich to expire then this is nothing more than another attack on the middle class. Most federal employees don’t have six figure jobs. Cut spending to private contractors, cut the defense budget, raise the the capital gains and dividend tax rates and allow the top tier of the Bush tax cuts to expire and as far as Social Security, just eliminate the cap. This seems pretty easy to me…..

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Rob, Tom, 93.7 WBLK: T-Boogie, mattmaison, WorldNewsRecord and others. WorldNewsRecord said: rawstory.com: Citing deficit, Obama to freeze federal worker pay: http://bit.ly/g2OGEk [...]

3 billion is not going to make much of a difference.

This is the first salvo in trying to implement a slightly less extreme version of the extremist agenda of the far-right, center-right, “bipartisan” “deficit reduction” commission. If Obama were really serious about cutting the deficit, he’d start by raising taxes on the wealthy, getting out of Afghanistan and Iraq, and further cutting the defense budget instead of pushing cuts that will obliterate what’s left of the middle class. If this is the best Obama is willing to do, he does not deserve a second term.

I held onto the belief for almost 2 years that Obama had some kind of secret plan for economic recovery that we just could not see. I am now convinced that he is only interested in protecting corporations and the wealthy. We shouldn’t be surprised when tax cuts for the wealthy are extended and the rest of us take it on the chin. Reagan would be proud of you obama.

Which side are you on, Barack, which side are you on?

Gotta come up with the money to give all the super wealthy another huge tax cut somehow, right?

And this is only the beginning of all the cuts so the wealthy don’t have to sell their second or third home, one of the boats or expensive cars or quit paying the high cost hookers.

Obama is to the right of Reagan, and he seems proud of it.

Just a crazy thought , but, wouldn’t it be nice, sometime, if we actually had a leftie for president?

I don’t care what anyone says, this man is absolutely tone-deaf to reality. C’mon Mr. President stop sucking up to the Rethugs and the baggers. Hitting employees wages doesn’t do anything. Why aren’t you criticizing the real villians, the CEOs and the Wall Street Bankers? When are you going to stop the faux bi-partisanship, and start doing the righ thing? Enough already!

FU barack, why don’t you slash the pay of the mercenary army you use to murder women and children with no oversite.

those aren’t federal offices moron.

A cynic could note that after the Repiglicans crash the economy a second time, a two year pay freeze might turn out to be a good deal.

Uh, the department of Education is a federal entity.

Spying on us while sucking us dry. Could it get any worse?

In his defense I have to say that some of those university deans are making over a million bucks a year. I know they’re now feds and many of those schools are private; however, education has never been a field where one goes to make a million bucks. And that has only been made possible by hiking tuition and robbing from the students. They’re all in it together from Congress to the banksters and even the educators now.

Brother, can you spare some Change?

And this will help the economy how? The money saved in the budget will be lost in sales growth in the economy. Funny when the economy was rolling along fueled by crimes of the Banksters on Wall Street, nobody was worried about the deficit, how much federal workers were making, they were laughing at the fed workers in their dead end jobs, now suddenly their porkers who need to be taken down. It’s the same with unemployment benefits and food stamps. They both generate more money in the economy that they cost as a program. Part of the Presidents one term strategy.

Not Republicans and Democrats, the wealthy vs. the working class. The commission has only the wealthy, no working class.

Wanna SAVE REAL Money $$$ ….TAKE AWAY & STOP PAYING ALL Federally TAX PAYER Funded Health Care for Congress and Senate (and thier families) …CUT IT ALL OUT….let’m BUY thier OWN….let’m see how much they REALLY have to pay…after all MOST of the Old eff’rs HAVE Pre-existing Conditions……STOP TAX PAYER FUNDED HEALTH CARE FOR CONGRESS & SENATE!

Screw the people who actually make government work. Obombya’s gotta make sure those Wall Street fat cats have enough money for their bonuses this year.

I support this in theory, except for VA doctors, who deserve a pay raise. I would prefer to bring the troops home as a way of balancing the budget.

My big concern, WIll a decrease in pay increase the probability of corruption through bribes?

The federal government must balance the budget and pay down the debt or the economic order will shift.

A better move would be to Slash half of those jobs; I highly doubt our forefathers intended for government to be the largest employer.

Then- let the politicians explain why there are so many unemployed citizens (after they and the lobbyists sold this country down the road.)

If Pres. Obama wants to make some fast money, he could bring about the end of tax exemptions for US companies operating shell companies off-shore.

But members of congress will still get their automatic yearly pay raise right?

okay, about 50% of all american workers either contract with the government or work for the government. Cut the jobs, where are all those workers going to find jobs? Hey, I’m all for it. I’m a die hard Republican conservative now, because I know it will destroy America. Go ahead, you fat bastards, attack Iran. That’s just what you McDonald’s addicts need. LOL!

It doesn’t help the economy a bit. It’s a gimmick pure and simple. But of course, Obama will continue to go on more vacations than the retard chimp and not freeze the pay of politicians.

You’re slow. I knew he was a corporatist whore the moment he voted for retroactive immunity for telecoms.

Here’s the flaw in your argument, the percentage cut of the jobs pie reserved for government jobs appears to grow as the private sector contracts and diminishes as the private sector jobs grow. It’s always a comparative number. If the nation hadn’t frittered away about 30-35 million jobs through, among other things, outsourcing our manufacturing base and wholesale destruction of the middle class we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

This Congress in this last month couldn’t even pass a bill to close a tax loophole/break that subsidizes outsourcing jobs. Your enemy isn’t isn’t the poor schmuck mailing out your Social Security check.

Federal employees pay has been frozen routinely over the last 30 years as a political sop to a demoralized and angry populous (with no idea about the actual demographics of the Federal work force) and a bunch of reactionary congressional republicans that hate government. This is the same old, and it just affects another segment of the working class.

The only segment of the Federal workforce that has done well is the intelligence agencies and they have a virtual blank check with essentially no real oversight. It’s all b/s and the people that are cheering this move are mean-spirited in direct proportion to their level of ignorance.

They israel more than that in welfare money.

So President ASSHOLE freezes Federal Civilian Employee pay for two years.

OK President ASSHOLE, how about you, your cabinet members, and all of the Congressional Reps and Senators take a pay cut? You all certainly don’t earn it!

And how about getting our military OUT of Iraq and Afghanistan? We are spending on average about 12.3 billion dollars per month on that BS, so over the next two years of Federal Employee Pay Freeze you save maybe 2 billion tax dollars!

Obama, it’s time you stopped your Fucking Republican Boot Licking and cock sucking and get real money-saving policies established!

This fucker really has to be booted out of office in 2012!

Didn’t President Obama freeze COLA increases for U.S. citizens on Social Security the past two years? Even though, the multi-trillion dollar Social Security Trust Fund, built-up over the past several decades by U.S. citizens on Social Security today, could be tapped into to cover these COLA increases during the time it takes our nation to recover from the Bush/Cheney obscenity?

I just wonder if President Obama is approaching the threshold where he becomes more conservative than even Bush was conservative, implementing what Bush would have loved to implement, and often did implement (like during the years when the Republicans controlled Capitol Hill)?

The postman gets hit with a freeze while deficit creating extension of tax cuts for the rich becomes a Republican priority.

Anyone else think that Obama and Pelosi got the vote for middle-class tax cuts in exchange for freezing federal worker’s pay? Or did they just magically happen at the same time?

I think the SS administration froze SS pay because of low inflation. I don’t think Obama had anything to do with that decision. I could be wrong.

For weeks they made sure you were told government workers make more than you. Now that your face book updates, blog posts, emails and chats have been data mined by Carnivore or whatever newer, faster system is in place, and they’ve got a read on your level of anger, here they come to tell you they’ve got a solution… freeze your neighbors pay.

The amount of our money that goes towards the government “sheep-loyees” salaries and benefits when compared to the whole picture is ridiculously small.

They just want us pointing our fingers at each other and not the real problem, them.

I work for the government and have no problem with the pay freeze. Many others are losing their jobs and taking pay cuts, why should I be exempt from pain?

Awesome O, stick it to the middle class yet again!

Why should anyone, public or private sector, have to accept ‘pain’ because the President or Congress wants to make a political point? Keep your willing sacrifice in mind as the Republicans demand (and probably with some success) that the 2%ers should get continued tax breaks. Exxon and GE paid no federal income taxes last year and you, or any worker or retiree should be required to sacrifice more? The people that are in charge are playing with your life and the lives of the countrys workers and citizens to benefit themselves.