Handing out raises

Especially in hard-hit Nevada, businesses do not have the luxury of rewarding nonperformers. In fact, this country’s economic climate is so weak that rewards for top workers at many firms are limited to continued employment, pay freezes and limited benefit reductions.

So what, exactly, are struggling taxpayers to make of last week’s executive order from President Obama, which awards pay raises to federal workers, members of Congress, federal judges and Vice President Joe Biden?

The country appears headed over the “fiscal cliff” this week, raising taxes on every American, because Washington’s elected leaders have refused to address the nation’s unsustainable spending and growth-inhibiting economic policies. Congress hasn’t passed a budget in years. In the real world, nonfeasance gets you fired. Yet lawmakers are about to get a nearly $1,000 raise on their $174,000 annual salaries.

Meanwhile, federal workers already are paid significantly more than private-sector employees, including benefits packages that cost four times as much as average private-sector plans. And federal workers collect pay raises for promotions and steps in grade. But it has been such a hardship for federal workers to go without so-called cost-of-living adjustments for two years, apparently, that the president’s order gives them a COLA of up to 1 percent come March.

Businesses deal with increasing costs and decreasing revenue by reducing their workforces or cutting overhead. The federal government, on the other hand, hands out pay raises and borrows money to cover those bills. It’s a travesty. On Monday, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, called on the president to rescind the order. Other lawmakers have introduced legislation to repeal raises the country can’t afford, and a Senate bill to avoid the “fiscal cliff” denies Congress the pay hikes.

The president doesn’t have the authority to give lawmakers or federal workers pay raises in the first place. If he can hand out raises, he can cut pay as well. How would that play in Washington? Congress is supposed to control the purse. The country needs more Scrooge and less Santa Claus.