Politics of Pay Freeze

Two takes on the Obama plan to freeze pay for federal employees. One, it's stupid. Two, it's smart.

Stupid because it's a gimmick. The $2 billion it will save in the budget will take a $1.3 trillion deficit to a $1.29 trillion deficit. Accomplishes nothing, neither long term or short. It's also stupid because it will do nothing to get Republicans, who are about to takeover the House, to compromise on one single issue. Stupid, too, because it once again alienates the president's base, as if he needs any more of that.  Stupid, finally, because there will be hundreds of loopholes where high level federal employees will get pay raises and then the administration will look incompetent, if not crooked.

On the other hand, it's smart, very smart politics.  I see this as pure Clintonian.  What did Clinton do right after being impeached?  Oh yeah, he reignited the whole star wars program, which is simply a huge Republican spending bill but who cares about deficits?  Clinton was a master at taking other people's proposals and making them his, and then turning the whole thing back around on them.

Let's face it, Republicans are and were never going to do anything about the deficit or spending in the first place.  If somehow they were able to take over the presidency tomorrow we would never hear another word about the budget, our huge debt or the deficit that they created.  It would all be forgotten in a nanosecond.  The politics of the pay freeze puts Republicans on the spot for a plan they have been claiming to support for at least 20 months now.  It also gives off the appearance that Obama is willing to accept Republican plans and work on a bipartisan level to help solve the budget crisis.  How will Republicans return the favor?  They won't.  But the appearance is all that matters.

Freezing pay will do nothing to solve the deficit problem.  It will also do nothing to stimulate anything.  It may, in fact, be harmless, totally.  That alone makes it worth the president's while.  This move is simply about politics.  Probably over the head of most progressives and liberals, simply because they see it as the president caving for yet another GOP proposal.  That's the point.