Despite High Unemployment, GOP Senators Plan To Slash 300,000 Government Jobs

Although the nation’s unemployment rate remains above 9 percent and 14.1 million Americans are out of work, two GOP senators think what the economy needs right now is to lay off another 300,000 workers. Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) introduced legislation this week that takes aim at federal workers, ostensibly to save $600 billion by cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs. Their bill would also freeze federal salaries and bonuses, eliminate 15 percent of contract workers, and slash the federal travel budget by an astonishing 75 percent:
Under the bill, S. 1476, salaries and bonuses would be frozen for three years, which Hatch said amounts to $140 billion in reduced spending over 10 years.
It would also require the administration to cut the size of the federal workforce by 15 percent over 10 years, amounting to 300,000 fewer workers. “This could easily be accomplished through attrition and would save taxpayers over $225 billion over that time,” Hatch said.

exhaustedandtired/1208 wrote:

tristen303 wrote:Dem Presidents have been better at stimulating the economy through spending (with the exception of Reagan who it could be said was the best). Lastly this spending issue has my party’s hands all over it. Remember our boy Cheney “Deficits don't matter"? Under Reagan we started borrowing to get out of the Carter mess, it worked but continued under Bush. Then Clinton brought back growth which covered the bets the previous two presidents made. Now it can be argued that the Clinton growth was the start of the financial mess we are in now but nonetheless the man and his admin created a surplus. Then comes Bush Jr which does what? Creates another entitlement the presc drug benefit with no way to pay for it but borrow, and then the wars and good bye surplus. However, Medicare by growth alone of the baby boomer generation was always going to exced revenue but only for that generation and Social Security which had real money has been raided to given IOUs. Now the US cannot technically go broke..We can print money that is worthless. But the argument that it’s the Dems fault is not accurate. But the Dems argument that it s the Repubs fault does carry more weight when considering the above however Dems spend so they helped drive drunk too. The problem were facing is the fallacy that one side is better; we need a plan not ideology.

Lets face it, every president has a pile of crap to clean up after they are gone! Obama has a Hugh pile already!

truth wrote:tristen,

I agree with this: "the US cannot technically go broke.." wholeheartedly.

However, I'm not saying that speeding up the printing presses is the answer to all our problems. I think that there are some programs that should be cut and some programs that need more funding. Waste should always be eliminated (although reasonable minds can differ as to the nature of wasteful spending). I further think that there are times when the budget should be in balance, times when a deficit is appropriate, and even times when a surplus is desirable.