Targeting the fat cats
by digby
Looks like the GOP members of the “Superduper Committee” have federal workers in their sites, but time. TPM got a hold of some Republican working papers:
TPM got a hold of what appears to be an internal GOP Super Committee wish list — a chart of working proposals for finding hundreds of billions of dollars in cost savings. A source recently forwarded the documents after finding them lying on a table outside the Speaker’s lobby at the end of August, just when members selected to serve on the joint-deficit panel were being announced.
Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) office confirmed that some of the papers originated from Republican staffers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, whch Issa chairs, although Issa spokesman Frederick Hill would not speculate on who left them lying there.A document containing a chart of different super committee proposals, Hill said, is just a list of options the committee has collected, not an exhaustive outline of proposals Issa has endorsed.
“Many of these things were an effort on the part of the staff to make a list for consideration of ideas that different entities have thrown out, including the bipartisan fiscal commission,” Hill said.
Most of the ideas focused on finding costs savings by reducing the federal workforce, eliminating cost-of-living increases for federal workers and increasing the amount federal employees contribute to their retirements and list either the bipartisan “fiscal commission,” the “House budget resolution” or the Congressional Budget Office as the source of the ideas.
This will, of course, create just a tone of confidence among the important job creators so it’s more than worth it to take more money out of the hands of middle class workers at a time of already low demand. And since the administration already put federal workers on the chopping block I’m fairly sure the Dems will go along. It’s part of that whole shared sacrifice thing.
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