December 5, 2002
BELLYING UP TO THE TROUGH:
White House Defends Return to Appointees' Cash Bonuses (ERIC LICHTBLAU, December 5, 2002, NY Times)Democrats in Congress said they found the plan particularly troubling because it was disclosed just days after the White House announced it was reducing raises that Congress had sought for employees within the federal work force of 1.8 million people.In reducing the salary adjustment to 3.1 percent from 4.1 percent, the White House said the government could not afford the higher increase because of the cost of the war on terrorism and the "national emergency" since the September 2001 terrorist attacks.
In addition, the White House moved last month to place as many as 850,000 government jobs up for competition from private contractors. Democrats in Congress have also blamed Republicans and the White House for the failure to extend unemployment benefits to hundreds of thousands of people past Dec. 28.
In their letter, the 89 House Democrats, including Representative Nancy Pelosi, the new minority leader, and other senior members, voiced their "strongest objections" to the reduced raises.
Representative George Miller of California, who is the ranking Democrat on the House education and work force committee and who spearheaded the letter, said the decision to award bonuses to political appointees who had excelled in the war on terrorism ignored the achievements of civil servants since the 2001 attacks.
"Somehow their recognition is that they get a pay cut, but the political appointees get a bonus," Mr. Miller said in an interview. "It's a terrible signal when you're trying to build esprit de corps with a new homeland defense agency."
It's inane to refer to a 3% pay hike as a pay cut, but other than that the Democrats are right on this one--the Administration should set an example by forgoing the bonuses. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 5, 2002 12:02 PM
Perhaps this is a bad move from a pr point of view. However, in the private sector if you have a bonus system you need to reward those who have met/exceeded their goals - denying them their bonuses because other parts of the corporation didn't pull their weight kills the incentive aspect of the bonus. While I may not have the details right it sounds like Bush is rewarding the better performers while giving other a minimal raise - again this is common in the private sector.
As conservatives we should want an incentive type system for govt. workers so that good workers are rewarded while mediocre ones don't get anything (which should be either an incentive to get better or to leave).
I'd also bet that most conservatives believe that a good chunk of the 1.8 million workers are in depts that should be reduced/eliminated and therefore shouldn't even be employed
AWW:
Yes, I'd give a bonus to any of them who eliminate their own jobs.
that "scaling back of sched. increases is really a cut" BS is what they used all through the Clinton years to make it seem like the budget was being cut, when only Defense took real money cuts (and there's a crater in NYC as a result) this 3% isn't anything new
Posted by: MarkD at December 5, 2002 8:50 PMGulp. If you tightwads get your way then I really will have to take a pay cut to enter "public service."
Posted by: Patrick Ruffini at December 6, 2002 1:18 AMGeez, give Ruffini a union card and he goes all wobbly. :)
Posted by: oj at December 6, 2002 7:00 AM