America may be $25 million away from breaching the interim debt ceiling, it may have well over 40 million people subsisting on food stamps, and we may be reading all about this "austerity" thing gripping the country, but it sure won't be impacting Federal workers, all millions and millions of them, if Obama has his way. According to Washington Post [5], the White House will propose a 0.5 percent pay increase for civilian federal employees as part of its 2013 budget proposal, according to two senior administration officials familiar with the plans." Well as long as the president is adamant about increasing taxes on what is left of America's upper middle class (and let's not forget that half of America pays no taxes at all) to pay for this, we see no way that this proposal will irritate the class-war divided United States even further. And yet we can't help but wonder: why a pay increased? Haven't we been brainwashed day after day how the only threat is deflation, that prices are not going up, that nobody actually needs food or gas, and that people should in fact be grateful for a pay cut?
More:
The modest cost of living increase in federal compensation would be the first pay jump for federal workers since before President Obama ordered a two-year freeze in late 2010.
The proposal, which would require congressional approval, differs from Republican plans supported by lawmakers and presidential candidates that would freeze federal compensation for at least one more year.
But, “a permanent pay freeze is not an acceptable policy,” one of the senior administration officials said Friday. “While modest, a .5 percent increase reflects the belt-tightening we must do in these difficult times.”
The officials were unauthorized to speak publicly on the matter, but added that the White House notified agency budget offices about the decision Friday morning so that agencies could complete their 2013 budget requests.
The White House is expected to formally unveil its fiscal 2013 budget proposal in early February.
Did we mention that Congress has yet to approve the preapproved interim debt ceiling increase, according to which the US can not issue $1 more in debt as of right now? Oh yes, we did [6].