Maybe There Is An Eleventh Dimension?

There was recently much hyperventilating about Obama's announcement of a (desired) "pay freeze" of federal employees for two years. Reactions, predictable: Republicans liked it but said it didn't go far enough, Democrats (self included) said it was bad policy and, given that he made the concession unilaterally instead of in return for something, bad politics; and "centrist" Very Serious People praised it as the kind of tough choices and hardship-enduring we just need to do. As I said, I counted myself in the second group: giving people money is generally a good thing in a depressed economy, federal employees just as much as anyone else. And yeah, the politics were dumb, one way or another.

But wait! It turns out that this is not a moratorium on raises, just on the cost of living adjustment. Which is based on inflation, usually the CPI. Which is currently standing at... 0.6%. I.e. nothing. And it is, after all, trending downward. If that 0.6% annual inflation rate keeps up, then someone who started making $50,000 this year would, after strict COLA increases, make $50,300 next year and $50,601 the year after that. So we're talking about $901 out of $100,901 in salary, or a pay cut compared to the status quo of 0.9%. Sure, that's not great, but it's also virtually meaningless. And of course, if we hit deflation next year, which sure as hell seems likely, then the Cost of Living isn't going up anyway, so..... And there will still be raises, after all, and it wouldn't be shocking if those raises somewhat compensate for the 0.9% of non-paying that would otherwise maybe be going on.

So the eleventh dimension here is that maybe the policy isn't so much bad as just really, really trivial and pointless. In which case there isn't necessarily anything to get all that mad about, since Obama didn't "give away" anything worth holding on to, and it may have somewhat inoculated the federal workforce from further Republican attacks. It's a possibility.

ALSO, on another subject. To the left: stop concluding that Barack Obama will reach an unacceptable result before he does so. Y'all said this about health-care, remember? And it passed. Moreover, recognize that yeah, it sucks, but yeah, for the time being the Republicans have a veto over all legislation. "The time being" extends until at least January 2013. So don't blame Obama for his inability to run roughshod over them: he can't! In which case, the best result of the tax-cuts debate is a deal in which the giveaways to the rich are extended for the next two or three years and a bunch of other, much more important stuff, like unemployment benefits, START, DADT, and DREAM, get done in return. What we want him to do, given that he can't just make the Senate pass things, is cave on the tax cuts, in exchange for something good. Nothing he has yet said/done indicates that he doesn't get that fundamental dynamic, whereas much of what is said at Huffington Post and even, now, DailyKos does not get that fundamental dynamic. If he gives the tax cuts away for nothing, get back to me, and I'll start agreeing with you.