President Obama’s decision to return 5% of his salary in solidarity with other federal workers furloughed by the “Sequester” reflects some fuzzy math.
First of all, many federal workers are staying home 100% of the time—they’re not taking a 5% pay cut.
Second, as a Democrat, Obama should support the idea of progressive taxation—the idea that the richest Americans should pay the highest taxes and bear the heaviest burden. To a man like Obama, worth $7 to $8 million, 5% is not as much of a burden as it is to a workers who earns $60,000.
2 Comments.
Obama has surrendered to his failure to even imagine a solution to the economic crisis. All he has to offer from his inadequacy before this problem is a symbolic sharing of the austerity his puppet masters’ demand he inflict on the 99%.
His 5% pay reduction is an apology for his inability to perform that I reject. I would rather he either look to history, to FDR, or that he forgo his entire salary by way of his resignation.
Maybe – but I think that his 5% pay reduction is no effort at all at an apology, instead, I view it as him jumping on the bandwagon of others who have taken a symbolic token effort at solidarity with others who’ve taken pay cuts, and further, as insurance against those who would fault him for not taking it. Like Ted said, a loss of 5% by a wealthy person is rarely a hardship, while 5% of a small income is felt much more.