Wednesday, November 9, 2011

The Stupid, Stupid Scapegoating of Public Employees

So...evidently Mitt Romney has in this evening's debate of Republican presidential candidates claimed that he would "link pay of public employees to that of private-sector workers." However, as the writers at Think Progress point out, such a claim would actually require RAISING the pay of public employees. According to an article in the Washington Post, Saturday, November 5:
The federal government reported Friday that on average, its employees are underpaid by 26.3 percent compared with similar non-federal jobs, a 'pay gap' that increased by about 2 percentage points over last year while federal salary rates were frozen.

Got that, Mitt Romney, and all the other Republican talkingpoint-bots who like to scapegoat public employees? 

It's all just a diversion tactic--to get people to focus on what's NOT important and to forget what IS: the increasing income gap in this country, the over-weaning power of corporations, and unemployment.

2 comments:

NicoandRod said...

I thought I would watch the debate last night merely for its entertainment value, given how entertaining the Republican candidates have been of late.

However, it was so incredibly boring that I couldn't hang in long enough to watch the Rick Perry black-out live.

I wonder what it would be like to add George W. Bush to the mix. I imagine memory is being too kind and that given a podium on those stages he would fit right in.

--Rod

Anita said...

I could have watched the debate live online, but I just read live blogs during the debate. Then, of course, the most entertaining snippets were broadcast immediately after the debate, so I guess I didn't miss much, either.