How's this for a bailout?
“The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA Today analysis of federal salary data.
“Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months -- and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.
“Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time -- in pay and hiring -- during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.
“The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.
“When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.”
At college, your editor took a few law classes (it was a phase). We remember a phrase judges threw around a lot, especially in situations of gross injustice or patent obscenity: As they would say, this “shocks the conscience.”
