Stupid Is

Anyone who thinks all of Washington’s new spending is somehow “temporary” had best read this story:

President Obama’s call last year for “shared sacrifice” doesn’t extend to federal employees, at least based on the details of his administration’s 2010 budget released this week.

At a time when the official unemployment rate is nearing double digits, and 6.35 million people are receiving unemployment benefits, the U.S. government is on a hiring binge.

Executive branch employment — 1.98 million in 2009, excluding the Postal Service and the Defense Department — is set to increase by 15.6 percent for the 2010 fiscal year. Most of that is thanks to the Census Bureau hiring 102,000 temporary workers, but not counting them still yields a net increase of 2 percent in one year.

There’s little belt-tightening in evidence in Washington, D.C.: Counting benefits, the average pay per federal worker will leap from $72,800 in 2008 to $75,419 next year.

Federal employment up, salaries up — and this is how Obama, Pelosi, Reid & Co. behave when times are bad. When the rest of us, I might add, are tightening our belts and saving money to pay down our debts.

Does anyone really think that once tax receipts start going up again, even one of those new federal workers will be shown the door? Or that any of these programs will see a cut?