Even though Jamelle and Tim already discussed President Obama's mind-boggling decision to push a pay freeze for federal workers, I have to put my two cents in, particularly because just a week before last, I wrote a column about how conservatives were gearing up to begin a campaign to vilify federal workers and blame all our problems on their allegedly generous pay.
But now, the president is doing their work for them. Lots of people have commented on how this is substantively useless and politically worthless. Perhaps most maddening, it's the kind of thing Obama might have gotten some kind of concession for in negotiating with Republicans, but instead he simply did it, a giveaway to Republicans for which he will get nothing in return. As Steve Benen said, "This week, the president will sit down with Republican leaders from the House and Senate, and will say something to the effect of, 'Well, I signaled a willingness to make a tough concession with the pay freeze. What kind of concessions are you prepared to make?' Boehner and McConnell will reply, 'We're not willing to make any concessions at all'; the meeting will end; and we'll be left with 2.1 million Americans with less buying power." Seems right to me.
But there's something else problematic here, too. By presenting this as a meaningful deficit-cutting measure, Obama has accepted some conservative notions, including the idea that federal workers are overpaid and that when it comes time to find money to balance the books, the answer is to target workers. That kind of move is just politically deadly. Conservatives do it every now and then -- most notably with their passionate if laughably disingenuous defenses of Medicare -- but most of the time, they are extremely careful not to accept the premises underlying any liberal ideas. When you do that, you've not just conceded this argument, you've put yourself at a disadvantage in the next argument as well.
Something tells me the pay freeze polls well. But that doesn't mean doing it will actually improve Obama's political fortunes. In fact, it's likely to do just the opposite, by undermining the foundation of all the other things he wants to do.
-- Paul Waldman
