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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Jessica Rettig
Romney wants to put public salaries on par with the private sector and cut the federal workforce
During a speech in Washington,
"Public servants shouldn't get a better deal than the taxpayers they work for," he said at an event organized by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political group.
His proposal to align federal and private-sector compensation, which he says could save as much as
Romney's campaign, citing a
"The American people are increasingly working to support the government," he said during his speech Friday. "It ought to be the other way around."
Romney got applause from the conservative crowd when he called for cuts to not only the salaries, but also the size of the federal workforce. He repeated a proposal -- which he included in the jobs plan he rolled out earlier this year -- that calls for a 10 percent cut to the federal workforce through a "1-for-2 system of attrition." In other words, for every two people that leave the federal government, only one person will be hired to replace them.
According to his jobs plan, this would give him the flexibility, as president, "to allocate the new hiring to those areas where additional resources could be put to most effective use."
Unions that represent federal workers have long dismissed the claim that public employees make more than similar professionals in the private sector.
"Candidates' proposals to slash federal pay are being offered in the guise of federal deficit reduction, but in reality they are politically driven," says William R. Dougan, president of the
AMERICAN POLITICS
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Mitt Romney Goes After Federal Employees in Fiscal Plan | Politics
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