Let the GOP / Teaparty continue to argue that federal workers are the enemy — it’s complete fiction but it’s essential to the Republican Strategy. Here are some facts you’ll never see reported on Fox “News”:
The wealth gap between those governing the U.S. and the people they represent has dramatically widened, research shows.
Against a backdrop of a vast budget deficit and fears of the fragility of the economy, analysis by the Washington Post shows that the median net worth of a member of Congress has nearly tripled over 25 years while the income of an average U.S. family has actually fallen.
It calculated that their median net worth, between 1984 and 2009 and excluding home equity, rose from $280,000 to $725,000.
But the GOP tells us that federal employees are the problem. Federal salaries see worst growth in a decade, analysis finds
Federal salaries rose an average of 1.3 percent in fiscal 2011 compared to 1.2 percent average pay growth for private sector workers, according to USA Today analysis.
The sluggish salaries, held down by a pay freeze and tight budgets, did not exceed inflation, the paper noted.
The average federal worker made $75,296 during that period, plus $28,323 in benefits, such as health care and retirement packages, the analysis found, adding that the government workforce has higher average education levels than the private sector and includes more professionals and specialists.
Pitting worker against worker, here is “The Republican Strategy” in part:
The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class – pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don’t believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.
By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans hope to deflect attention from the big story. That’s the increasing share of total income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish.
Divide and conquer the sheeple. That’s all the GOP has to offer in any election. Especially when their biggest idea consists of tax cuts for the wealthy paid for with austerity for the rest of us. Hooray!
Related:
