Obama To Return 5 Percent Of His Salary In Solidarity With Furloughed Federal Workers
Have any rethugs jumped on this bandwagon?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/03/obama-salary_n_3008600.html
Obama To Return 5 Percent Of His Salary In Solidarity With Furloughed Federal Workers
By JOSH LEDERMAN 04/03/13 03:10 PM ET EDT AP
WASHINGTON -- The White House says President Barack Obama will return 5 percent of his salary to the Treasury in light of automatic spending cuts that have led to furloughs for thousands of federal workers.
A White House official says Obama decided to return part of his salary each month for the rest of the year to share in the sacrifice that government employees are making. The official wasn't authorized to discuss the decision publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The president makes $400,000 per year. A 5 percent pay cut amounts to a little less than 1,700 per month.
The decision is retroactive to the beginning of March. That's when $85 billion in federal spending cuts kicked in after lawmakers failed to agree on a plan to undo them.
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022604657
In Act of Solidarity, Top Pentagon Officials Will Return a Share of Salaries
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/04/03/president-obamas-purely-symbolic-sequester-strategy-and-why-it-might-work/
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By taking a voluntary cut in his own pay — no matter the size or amount — President Obama is forcing the sequester back into the news and back to the top of peoples’ minds, at least for a day or two.
And, what he is clearly hoping is that other Administration figures and other elected officials take his cue to forego some salary and, in so doing, keep the story in the news — ratcheting up the pressure on those (mostly Republicans) who are just fine with keeping the sequester in place.
That’s already happening — with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Alaska Democratic Sen. Mark Begich announcing they will take a voluntary five percent pay cut as well. Expect lots more Democrats — and likely some Republicans — to follow suit in the coming days.
Will Obama’s sequester strategy work? It depends on how you define “work”. It will almost certainly re-direct attention to the sequester, which, in and of itself, is a victory of sorts for the Administration. Whether or not it actually moves Congress and the White House to action to avert some of the sequester’s nastier consequences remains to be seen.
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