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Perhaps the best piece of utter wackiness coming out of this
Washington debt-cutting frenzy is a proposal from Republican Sen. Bob
Corker of Tennessee, a member in good standing of the Serious People
club. Corker's plan, the Fiscal Reform Act of 2012 includes items like cuts
to Social Security and Medicare, which are described in classic
Washington fashion as "reform."
But the best part of Corker's plan is his proposal for cuts in the wages
and benefits of the federal government's workforce. These cuts average $
$180,700 for every federal employee. That is not a typo. The figure comes
from taking the $397 billion in savings that Corker wants to come from
"Federal Employee Hiring and Benefit Reform" and dividing it by the
2,197,000 employees on the federal government's payroll.
That one is worth mulling over for a few minutes. We're talking about
$180,700 in wage and benefit cuts for every nurse and custodian working
at the Veterans Administration's hospitals; $180,700 in cuts for every letter
carrier who delivers our mail; $180,700 in cuts for every meat inspector at
the Food and Drug Administration who ensures that our food is safe.
In Washington today, proposals like Corker's pass for serious. At a
time when tens of millions of people are still unemployed, underemployed
or out of the labor force altogether as a result of the fallout created by the
collapse of the housing bubble, in Washington it is serious to argue that
our biggest problem is that custodians at the VA hospitals are getting paid
too much.
In fairness, it is not only federal employees who Corker and the other
deficit hawks want to whack. They also want to cut Social Security
benefits, raise the age of eligibility for Medicare to 67 and to cut
Medicaid, which covers the cost of most nursing home care for the
nation's elderly. The basic story is that anyone who is not rich can expect
to see a big hit if these deficit hawks get their way; it's just that federal
employees get special treatment.
As always, the folks who were the central cause of the economy's
wreckage and the large current budget deficits escape largely unscathed in
the Serious People's offensive on the debt. For some reason, the Serious
People never consider the idea of a modest tax on Wall Street speculation.