As I stated in a previous article, the pay freeze on federal workers is a sham (see rightwinggranny.com).  It is simply a non-adjustment of the Cost of Living Allowance (COLA)–it does not effect any other pay increases.  The freezing of the COLA was expected anyway after there was no COLA allowance given to Social Security this year as well as last year.  There is no federal pay freeze.  That’s what makes the story at The Hill‘s Blog Briefing Room so funny.

Barney Frank stated this week that exceptions may have to be made to President Barack Obama’s proposed pay freeze in order to effectively implement the Wall Street reform bill.  What that means is that he wants exemptions to the pay freeze if regulatory agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CTFC), can show they are needed to hire the appropriate talent.  I would like to point out that federal workers already make about 30 to 40 per cent (including benefits) more than private sector workers.  Why in the world would you have to exempt them from the pay freeze?  Also, this is the man who constantly complains about what Wall Street people are being paid–don’t companies have to pay enough to attract the talent?  You can’t have it both ways Representative Frank. 

According to the article at The Hill:

“In July, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro announced that her agency intends to hire 374 new employees in 2011. She also indicated that to meet the requirements set out in the Dodd-Frank bill, the agency will need to hire up to 800 staff in total.”

This is called growing the government.  The SEC now has to hire 800 new people.  The taxpayers have to pay for those jobs.  This is where the deficit comes from.  The problem is not low tax revenue–it is high spending.