Recently, people have started to notice that government employees, especially federal employees are starting to make more money than private sector employees. USA Today reported in March that federal employees had salaries of over 12% more than private sector employees in 2008. And, this noted that the benefits were even higher:
These salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
One would think that with regulators failing or watching porn and the public’s estimation of government at an all-time low, Congress would be interested in doing something about this. Not Chris Dodd or the Democrats. Instead, his financial regulation bill actually creates a whole office full of government bureaucrats with unlimited salaries. Let’s look at the text of Section 152 (d).
(d) OFFICE PERSONNEL
(1) IN GENERAL
–The Director, in consultation with the Chairperson, may fix the number of,
and appoint and direct, all employees of the Office.
This means that the Director of the Office of Financial Research picks the size of the department, not Congress. And their pay is set at the discretion of the office, not subject to the rules governing civil servants.
(2) COMPENSATION
–The Director, in consultation with the Chairperson, shall fix, adjust, anadminister the pay for all employees of the Office without regard to chapter 51 or subchapter III ofchapter 53 of title 5, United States Code, relatingto classification of positions and General Schedule pay rates.
Let me make sure I get this right.
The regulators fail. So you give them more power and unlimited salaries?