People obviously resent bankers and their big bonuses. And now, in another sphere, it’s hard to tell who the public hates more: government officials or government workers.
The Washington Post describes the public’s current feelings as “a crescendo in American anger” and an “Againstness Epidemic.” Some insight via a recent survey:
People were asked a standard question about how much confidence they had in President Obama to “make the right decisions” for the nation’s future. A majority — 53 percent — gave the two most dismal of the four possible responses: “just some” and “none at all.” The same question had been asked a year earlier; in just 12 months, the “none at all” camp had tripled, from 9 percent to 27 percent…
Democrats in Congress did worse than Obama in the Post-ABC poll, and Republicans in Congress did worst of all. The health-care bill that lawmakers have labored on for the past year has gotten a national thumbs-down: According to a new USA Today/Gallup poll, 55 percent of Americans want Congress to suspend work on the current health-care bills and start over.
And that $787 billion stimulus package? No, thanks. In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, 56 percent of those surveyed said they oppose the government’s effort to juice the economy.
Meanwhile, Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby writes about the rising resentment against government workers—who have always enjoyed more job stability and better pensions than their private sector counterparts, but who now are increasingly likely to also make more money. They’re also more likely to have jobs period. From Jacoby:
… not everyone is having a rotten recession.
Since December 2007, when the current downturn began, the ranks of federal employees earning $100,000 and up has skyrocketed. According to a recent analysis by USA Today, federal workers making six-figure salaries – not including overtime and bonuses – “jumped from 14 percent to 19 percent of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months.’’ The surge has been especially pronounced among the highest-paid employees. At the Defense Department, for example, the number of civilian workers making $150,000 or more quintupled from 1,868 to 10,100. At the recession’s start, the Transportation Department was paying only one person a salary of $170,000. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees were drawing paychecks that size.
All the while, the federal government has been adding jobs at a 10,000-a-month clip.
Folks with state and local government jobs are also faring considerably better than workers (or frustrated non-workers) in the private sector, writes Jacoby, who ends the piece:
A showdown is coming, and more likely sooner than later. Taxpayers will put up with a lot, but their patience has its limits.
As you’d expect, both of these stories have been flooded with comments that bring the hate like only an anonymous band of Internet users can. A fairly tame example:
What is totally unacceptable are these legions of do-nothing government employees with their gold plated salaries and pensions that we poor working stiffs have to pay for. Then when they retire, many often compete with us in the private sector while they collect these great 80% pensions! That’s a real kick in the you know what.