Dodd Has a Dream… for Government Employees

by Michael van der Galien
Posted on May 1 2010 10:00 am

Michael van der Galien was born in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden in 1984. For as long as he can remember, he has been obsessed with the United States. When he was 17 years old, he started blogging - of course about America. His articles have been published at Big Hollywood, Pajamas Media, Hot Air (the GreenRoom) and Right Across The Atlantic. He's also an editor for the Dutch conservative blog, De Dagelijkse Standaard.

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Great news; Soren Dayton writes for Big Hollywood that Senator Chris Dodd’s finance regulation bill “creates a whole office full of government bureaucrats with unlimited salaries.” This even though federal employees are already earning 12% more than private employees. Isn’t that wonderful?

Just look at the text of Section 152 (d).
(d) OFFICE PERSONNEL

(1) IN GENERAL
—The Director, in consultation with the Chairperson, may fix the number of,
and appoint and direct, all employees of the Office.

As Dayton notes, this means that “the Director of the Office of Financial Research picks the size of the department, not Congress. And their pay is set at the discretion of the office, not subject to the rules governing civil servants.”

2) COMPENSATION
—The Director, in consultation with the Chairperson, shall fix, adjust, anadminister the pay for all employees of the Office without regard to chapter 51 or subchapter III ofchapter 53 of title 5, United States Code, relatingto classification of positions and General Schedule pay rates.

This is now what I’d call leftism in action: sooner or later the only profitable (and respected) jobs are those in service of the government. Frustrating, yes, surprising, no.