Instead of grilling corporate executives about bonuses and sky-high salaries that are outside of the government's control, why don't congressmen investigate the boom in salaries that they directly control? One of the perverse outcomes of a recession is the windfall in income among federal workers. When the private sector is suffering, it's party time in the government. "Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months--and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted," USA Today's Dennis Cauchon reports. "Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time--in pay and hiring--during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector." The USA Today study found that the average federal worker earns $71,000 a year, compared to the average private sector worker who takes in $40,000 a year. Consider this vomit-inducing item: "When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000." Why is there even a Transportation Department, let alone one employing 1,700 people making $170,000 or more?

Certainly, it's all quite galling. Not sure what the economic formula that those in control of government are operating under, but as government ONLY has the power to tax and print money and has no ability to produce anything, where do the geniuses think even mo' money is going to come from unless they borrow and go into even more debt? And we all know what taxing does to slow and kill the private sector where the real production and means for government taxation lie.

Apparently, it hasn't sunk in yet that Free Market Capitalism is the only system that enables government and not the collectivist concept of paying people in the public sector to starve the private sector.

I work for the Govt and I dont see crap but nickel and dimes for raises. All Federal Employees are recieving a 2.0% increase in their salary for 2010 but, my health insurance is going up $20 a month so there goes that raise. There is way too much cronyism going on in the Fed Govt and the actual "workers" suffer because of it. I'm getting tired of positions appointed to individuals who are way incompetant or way inexperienced just because they contributed to the current Pres campaign or they have a high ranking relative. Case in point, former ICE secretary Julie Myers or DOHS secretary Janet Napolitano.

Yeah, Myers is a joke...

So as the government increases in size, private industry recedes. Maybe there's a connection.

One of the funniest events concerning this lately, is Obama and his merry band of Democrat plofigates lecturing all of us insignificant little people about our credit card spending.

This from a crew that spent 789 Billion in February, another 410 Billion in May and wants to waste the last 200 Billion from the TARP funds for another useless Stimulus/Democrat slush fund.

For real.

And oh, by the way, congressional Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi wrote and submitted legislation to raise the Treasury's debt ceiling by nearly $2 Trillion to $13.9 Trillion.

Now THAT is responsible government!