Matt Margolis

It must be nice to know that every year you’re going to get a raise. I’ve never been guaranteed a 4.1 percent yearly pay raise. Not only that, any pay raise that I ever am entitled to is based on my performance only. So what are federal workers complaining about today? Instead of the expected 4.1% pay raise that has been guaranteed to those covered by the government’s general schedule pay system since the 1990, they’re getting a 3.1%.

In the Boston Globe story on November 30, 2002, Paul Light, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution said “It’s one of several lumps of coal in the stocking this year.” Give me a break. Bobby L. Harnage Sr., president of the American Federation of Government Employees calls the 3.1% pay raise “… just another slap at federal employees,” then criticizes the Bush Administration for wanting to “recruit the best and the brightest, but they can’t even keep the best and the brightest in those jobs now.”

Excuse me? These federal workers are still getting a raise, a raise that exceeds the rate of inflation nonetheless, and suddenly the pay isn’t adequate? Does 1% really mean the difference between a good salary and a bad salary? These people are making it out like their pay was cut.

Let’s think about this… We are in the middle of a war. To give federal workers their full 4.1% raise would cost $13.6 billion in 2003, and according the article that’s $11.2 billion more than Bush had proposed for the year. I think the War on Terror is more important than the pocket change difference that 1% means to each individual federal worker’s salary.

Federal workers ought to think about what they’re whining about. One percent won’t add too much to your wallet, but saving over 11 billion dollars for the country will have more of an impact on something more important.