Presiding over a congressional district with one of the highest concentrations of federal workers in the country, Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) has consistently been an unabashed supporter of federal employees and federal spending.
It’s little surprise then that Moran is criticizing President Obama’s decision to freeze the salaries of two million federal employees for the next two years.
Moran released the following statement yesterday evening.
This move will only embolden the opponents of civil service, those who got elected claiming the federal government is broken and will now set about trying to break it.
Unilaterally freezing pay for civil servants separate from a comprehensive, deficit reduction package unfairly asks federal employees to carry a burden that should be shared by all. This freeze strikes at the heart of pay parity, penalizing civilian federal employees in the Defense Department, CIA and other agencies who work side-by-side with our active duty service men and women overseas.
A two year freeze also threatens to exacerbate the brain drain from our federal agencies as the baby boomers reach retirement. It flies in the face of the basic fact that federal employees, particularly those in the management sector, are already underpaid when compared to their private sector counterparts.