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philbo wrote: Fri Aug 31, 2018 11:19 am Either the economy is at an all time high and there are no problems, or we are facing a national emergency and serious economic conditions as trump stated to justify this latest action. It's one or the other, not all at the same time.

mojo84 wrote: Fri Aug 31, 2018 11:28 am My only complaint about the elimination of the pay increases is that he stopped short of firing about half of the federal government workforce.

Liberal haters are going to hate no matter what he does.

Without Trump’s intervention, a 1990 federal pay law would give federal workers a default raise of nearly 30 percent if Congress failed to reach a decision on an increase before the end of the calendar year. But in a letter to Congress Thursday, Trump said the federal government could not afford the increases, and in effect set a new default raise of zero.
“Under current law, locality pay increases averaging 25.70 percent, costing $25 billion, would go into effect in January 2019, in addition to a 2.1 percent across-the-board increase for the base General Schedule. We must maintain efforts to put our Nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and Federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases,” Trump’s letter said.

“I strongly oppose eliminating the pay raise for civilian federal employees and will work with my colleagues to have the pay raise included in our appropriations,” Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) said in a statement. “We cannot balance the budget on the backs of our federal employees and I will work with my House and Senate colleagues to keep the pay increase in our appropriations measures that we vote on in September.”

“Today’s announcement has nothing to do with making government more cost-efficient — it’s just the latest attack in the Trump Administration’s war on federal employees,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.).

NJ_Expat wrote: Fri Aug 31, 2018 11:39 am I'm not a liberal by any stretch, but as an economist by training, I can't help but notice that the administration is making decisions based upon economic theories that were debunked decades (or even centuries) ago. Fundamental changes needed to be made to the way the U.S. does business at home and abroad, but I am deeply concerned.

In my opinion, our current path is a dangerous one that will produce no winners (except wealthy folks with their respective golden parachutes).

bblhd672 wrote: Fri Aug 31, 2018 11:52 amI can't help but notice you, an economist by training, criticize the administration's economic decisions, yet offer no better plan to be considered.

philbo wrote: Fri Aug 31, 2018 4:51 pm W. Samuel Patten, 47, pleaded guilty Friday to failing to register as a foreign lobbyist while working on behalf of a Ukrainian political party,with help from a Russian associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. He also admitted in court Friday that he steered $50,000 from a Ukrainian politician to President Trump’s inaugural committee — the first public confirmation that illegal foreign money was used to help fund the January 2017 event.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/pu ... b05e3084a0

So Much Winning!