INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted 12/24/2013
Obama Contributes To Income Inequality By
Signing ... - Federal Pay Raise Investors.com
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/122413-684162-federal-pay-raise-makes-rich-richer-in-washington.htm
Inequality: Federal workers
are getting a pay raise for Christmas. It's not a big one. But we have to
wonder why workers in the country's highest-income metropolitan area need to be
paid more at the rest of America's
expense.
Earlier this
month, in one of his many pivots, President Obama made a speech lamenting
income inequality in America.
He called it the "defining challenge of our time."
"This
increasing inequality is most pronounced in our country," he said.
"And it challenges the very essence of who we are as a people."
Nearly three
weeks later, Obama contributed to that inequality by signing an executive order
hiking civilian and military pay by 1% in 2014.
Again, it's
not a big raise. And we don't begrudge better pay for those who serve us in the
armed forces.
But we have
to question why federal civilian workers need bigger paychecks. It looks like
things are already going well for them.
According to
U.S. Census Bureau, five of
the seven richest communities in the U.S.
are in the greater Washington
area. Four — Falls Church, Loudon County, Fairfax
County and Arlington
County — are in northern Virginia, while Howard
County is in Maryland.
In fact, 10
of the 15 richest counties are in the capital region. Economist Dan Mitchell
calls these "super elite" counties and notes that the wealth in these
areas is in the top half of the hated 1%.
"The
American people need to realize that they are being pillaged by the insiders
that control Washington and live fat and easy
lives at our expense," Mitchell says in the Cato At
Liberty blog,
The city of Washington itself ranks
third in the country, despite rampant poverty in its southeastern quadrant.
According to the St. Louis Fed, Washington's median
annual income is more than $65,000 while the national median annual income is
just north of $50,000.
The moneyed
class in metro Washington
starts with the bureaucrats. These folks, Mitchell says, "are paid too
much, getting twice as much compensation, on average, as people in the
productive sector of the economy."
The capital
upper crust also includes lobbyists, contractors and special interest groups
who, says Mitchell, have "figured out how to get lucrative positions at
the federal trough."
So the rich
get richer in Washington
while most of the rest of the country subsidizes wealthy federal workers and
others who have gamed the system for themselves.
Rather than
give the federal civilian workforce a pay raise, Obama should have been cutting
its ranks. That might make a dent in the inequality he pledged to erase.
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/122413-684162-federal-pay-raise-makes-rich-richer-in-washington.htm