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“HALT PAY RAISES FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEES” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Transportation was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H4201 on May 28, 2010.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
HALT PAY RAISES FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEES
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mrs. BACHMANN. Mr. Speaker, today this Congress had a chance to save our American taxpayers $2 billion next year by halting another scheduled pay raise for Federal employees, but this Chamber refused once again to listen to the cries of the American people.
Today, we know that our budget deficits are clearly unsustainable. They are falling off the cliff, dropping off the cliff of financial sanity, and we simply can't afford anymore to continue the out-of-
control spending policies that have marked both Republican and Democrat leadership here in Washington, DC.
I thank my colleague, Representative Eric Cantor, for spearheading the new program called YouCut, where we reach out to the American people and ask them to tell us what they would like us to cut here in Washington from the Federal budget.
Clearly, the government doesn't create the wealth or the jobs in this country. It's the private sector that does that. And when the government taxes and spends the way it has been the last several years, then innovators and entrepreneurs are stripped of the flexibility that they need to create jobs by excessive taxes and burdensome regulations.
We're now at the point, Mr. Speaker, where we have over $13 trillion in debt. Who ran the debt up? This is under Democrat leadership, but this is under Republican leadership. Both parties have been at fault with increasing the debt that the next generation has to pay. It isn't a Republican or Democrat issue. And the American people are outraged by all of the out-of-control spending that's been going on in this city by both political parties.
Under President Bush, the Federal employees received across-the-board raises of 3 percent in January of 2008 and 3.9 percent in January of 2009. The same thing happened under President Obama. He recommended increases in pay for Federal employees in each of the years he's been in office. In fact, since the year 2000, Federal workers have received annual pay raises of 3.6 percent a year. But we could have, today, eliminated the latest Federal employee pay raise and also put the kibosh on the pay raises for Members of Congress, but that was voted down, unfortunately, primarily by the Democrat majority of this body.
According to the newspaper USA Today this week, they reported the typical Federal worker is paid 20 percent more than a private-sector worker in the same occupation. In fact, Mr. Speaker, in 83 percent of all job categories between the government worker and the private worker, 83 percent of the time Federal employees are paid more, in fact, substantially more, than their private counterparts. This doesn't include the value of benefits like health care and retirement. When you take them into account, this graph shows Federal employees are making double what people in the private sector are making.
In fact, the numbers, Mr. Speaker, show the average wage and benefit package for a government employee today in America is almost $120,000. For their counterpart in the private sector, their average wage and benefit package is just under $60,000 a year. Double is what people who are government workers are making over those in the private sector.
This Chamber today couldn't even bring themselves to freeze the pay increases of these government workers that are making double what people in the private sector are making today.
Here's one example. Federal employees making over $100,000. When the recession started 18 months ago, 14 percent of Federal employees made over $100,000. The recession has been very kind to government workers. Now it's 19 percent of government workers make over $100,000 a year.
Here's an even more specific example. In the Department of Transportation, only one government worker made over $170,000 a year. Eighteen months of the recession and we have 1,690 employees now making over $170,000 a year in the Department of Transportation. That's even before you consider overtime and bonuses.
The recession has been very kind to the government worker, not so much for those in the private sector.
My proposal today would have prevented Members of Congress from getting pay increases. Unfortunately, the majority party did not want to prevent their own pay increases. We would have kept in place the pay increases for our military. Why? Because they deserve it. At 1.4 percent increase during a time of war, we should not ask our military to make that sacrifice.
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