Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations

Inequality: Federal workers are getting a pay raise for Christmas. It's not a big one. But we have to wonder why workers in the country's highest-income metropolitan area need to be paid more at the rest of America's expense.

Earlier this month, in one of his many pivots, President Obama made a speech lamenting income inequality in America. He called it the "defining challenge of our time."

"This increasing inequality is most pronounced in our country," he said. "And it challenges the very essence of who we are as a people."

Nearly three weeks later, Obama contributed to that inequality by signing an executive order hiking civilian and military pay by 1% in 2014.

Again, it's not a big raise. And we don't begrudge better pay for those who serve us in the armed forces.

But we have to question why federal civilian workers need bigger paychecks. It looks like things are already going well for them.

According to U.S. Census Bureau, five of the seven richest communities in the U.S. are in the greater Washington area. Four � Falls Church, Loudon County, Fairfax County and Arlington County � are in northern Virginia, while Howard County is in Maryland.

In fact, 10 of the 15 richest counties are in the capital region. Economist Dan Mitchell calls these "super elite" counties and notes that the wealth in these areas is in the top half of the hated 1%.

"The American people need to realize that they are being pillaged by the insiders that control Washington and live fat and easy lives at our expense," Mitchell says in the Cato At Liberty blog,

The city of Washington itself ranks third in the country, despite rampant poverty in its southeastern quadrant. According to the St. Louis Fed, Washington's median annual income is more than $65,000 while the national median annual income is just north of $50,000.

The moneyed class in metro Washington starts with the bureaucrats. These folks, Mitchell says, "are paid too much, getting twice as much compensation, on average, as people in the productive sector of the economy."

The capital upper crust also includes lobbyists, contractors and special interest groups who, says Mitchell, have "figured out how to get lucrative positions at the federal trough."

So the rich get richer in Washington while most of the rest of the country subsidizes wealthy federal workers and others who have gamed the system for themselves.

Rather than give the federal civilian workforce a pay raise, Obama should have been cutting its ranks. That might make a dent in the inequality he pledged to erase.

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/122413-684162-federal-pay-raise-makes-rich-richer-in-washington.htm