Defense contractors continue to bilk taxpayers with little oversight.
In 2010, the federal government has enacted a two year freeze on cost of living adjustments for federal employees, an austerity measure championed by President Obama. Now, the Democrats have lifted that freeze and sought small increases for federal workers.
Today, House Republicans voted to extend the pay freeze for another nine months. In doing so, they argue that federal workers should not get pay increases while many Americas in the private sector are not getting them.
But while both Congress and the President have championed pay freezes for federal employees at some point over the past two years, one group has gotten away with earning enormous salaries at taxpayer expense: defense contractors.
Defense contractor pay is currently capped at $763,000, which is almost twice what President Obama’s salary is. Last December, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) inserted a measure into the defense authorization bill that would’ve capped these salaries to $230,700 — the salary of the Vice President of the United States.
Unfortunately, this measure did not make it into the final bill, which simply promised to study the contractor pay cap.
Essentially, the House Republicans are saying that hard-working employees at the Environmental Protection Agency or Federal Bureau of Investigation should have their salaries frozen, but if you work for Lockheed Martin or Halliburton, you can continue to fleece American taxpayers.
It is not the role of the government to set the salaries of private sector employees, executives etc. The free enterprise market has always created corrections through natural supply and demand.
Comparing the annual salary of the VP, the President or other elected officials to the salaries of private sector employees is not only an apples to oranges comparison – it is a non sequitur.
When you are guys going to stop and realize – for the last 50 to 100 years, everyplace and every time these central planning progressive principles have been instituted; they have never accomplished the stated goals. Just look at every large municipality, county or state that has been under primarily progressive leadership across our nation for the last 50 years – it nearly every instance; these localities have higher crime, higher poverty, and less quality of life for their citizens. As for the last four years under Uber-Liberal Socialist leaning Obama – nothing is better. Depending on the area of measurement, nearly every area is worse now than before.
Wake-up for God sakes!
What in the name of bloated pig contractor rip-offs are you talking about? Government rip-off contracts have NOTHING to do with a free market economy. They are patronage pigs at the public trough who get their taxpayer payola by bribing your corporate tool do-nothing BONER congress. END the contractor madness and stop privatizing stuff the military should be doing on its own. Pure graft. Ask any soldier, sailor, airman, or marine. We have wasted trillions on the crooks at Haliburton, Blackwater, et al, while military members are underpaid, over-deployed, and abused.
Most things are better since President Obama came into office. Only someone who was never going to care that Bush and republicans left this country in a recession of great proportions with two wars going on and a financial meltdown. President Obama and Democrats, with the Recovery Act, saved and created over 2 million jobs and helped this country recover from the financial crisis. We are now out of Iraq, Osama bin Laden is dead and President Obama has been reelected and he will do his best for this country and that is never the case with any of the most rabid and disgusting republican vultures in our government. You are not right about your assertions but republicans have done there best to deny any progress for this country for the better and they are still on that evil and destructive path.
Federal workers are being victimized by republicans who won’t end subsidies to oil corporations in the billions, but will do their best to suppress federal workers pay which is revolting. As always the GOP is for the one percent and only the one percent.
I came to this website because I know of someone who is a defense contractor for Lockheed Martin, who just got moved into a new job, and has been taking WEEKS of paid vacation. That’s right, she’s absolutely doing NOTHING on taypayer money, for weeks on end. Proudly posting on her facebook that this is week # ___ of her paid vacation. This is not the only time it has happened, she she switched contractors a few times, it has happened in varying periods, ranging from several days to several weeks of PAID time. How is it fair that other American citizens are working their butts off, not getting enough vacation (or money to even spend on vacation), and these defense contractors are getting away with being paid NOT to work?!!! Seriously, is there some hotline for calling in such obvious waste of taxpayer money???
Unfortunately a too common story!