Federal Wage Freeze: It's Like Tipping the Rich for Being Rich:
Let us not argue for a moment the economics of President Obama's proposed federal employee pay freeze, except to say that it's about as uselessly symbolic a gesture as giving a piece of fruit to a fat man. Instead, let us think for a moment about the utterly dumbfounding and worthless political nature of the act. Because the Republicans are like that fat guy, and they're gonna take that fruit and say, "That's great. Now give us the rest of the groceries 'cause we're fucking fat and hungry here."

There was something just sorrowfully pathetic about watching the President, in the midst of negotiating some kind of endgame on tax cuts and while trying to figure out how to extend unemployment benefits, decide to triangulate and unilaterally give in to one of the Republicans' demands. What the hell happens now? Does the White House think that John Boehner will all of a sudden understand that the President is serious about working with the GOP? John Boehner doesn't fucking care. Motherfucker just had a meeting with Randall Terry, a terrorist as much as any radical imam anywhere.

The freeze applies to the across-the-board increases in salaries of federal employees, amounting to about 1.4%. It's not enough, of course, for Republicans. It's never enough. Odd-looking Mormon Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Nevada said that "the proposal does not appear to curb step increases. If that is the case, this announcement is nothing more than a hollow press release. At the end of the day, this policy will serve only to frustrate current employees while doing nothing to curb our debts." You know what that means? There's a chart of salary steps within each federal pay grade. For Chaffetz, who, as a congressman, earns more than about 99% of federal employees, it's not enough to freeze cost of living pay increases. Nope. Even within an unchanged pay scale of the government, you cannot advance salary-wise. That means that the poor fucker who's making $23,296, at grade 3, step 3, to clean Chaffetz's piss off toilets at the Capitol not only won't get a pissant general raise, but he can't move up a step to $24,024. You may say, "Well, that's the nature of a freeze," but you're not wiping up after Jason Chaffetz.

But let us not neglect that the backdrop for the pay freeze is deciding whether or not federal tax cuts should expire on income over $250,000 (or $1,000,000) a year. Essentially what Obama is saying is that a shit mopper at the Capitol ought to make less money so that the Koch brothers can afford to make more ads about what a socialist fucker Barack Obama is.

Two million people are about to lose their unemployment checks. Wall Street execs are making more money than ever while attempting to have their taxes cut. That's about as clear a case for wealth redistribution as one can make, except, of course, is that the right wants it redistributed to the rich. What President Obama doesn't seem to get, or hasn't demonstrated that he gets, is that the Republicans don't fucking care about anything other than making Barack Obama pay for being Barack Obama.

And if this post seems incoherent, like sputtering without meaning, it's because the Rude Pundit doesn't get it, either. What he doesn't get is why the pay freeze? Why another capitulation? What does it achieve, other than alienating even more people? When Obama finally caves on tax cuts for the wealthy, it'll be like federal workers just gave a tip to rich people just because rich people are so fucking great because they're rich.

The thing about a line in the sand is that, the second the sand shifts, the line disappears, as if it was never there to begin with.