One hundred seventy two thousand and two hundred dollars per year. In the arabic numerals, that looks like $172,200/yearly. That’s the salary of Mr. Robert Gibbs, who is set to resign as the White House press secretary in early February. And how is this salary described by the current chief executive? Modest.
Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Gibbs may be worth every cent– I don’t, nor would I begrudge anyone for making the most money that they possibly can, especially in a work environment that is truly political and can turn at any instant. The thing that I am incredulous at is the President’s adjective in describing the level of salary that the press secretary receives. $172,200/year is modest? I would call this well paid. This is just another example that Washington is truly out of touch with the rest of the nation.
And it is this mindset that has gotten us to not blanche at our current federal debt, which is up from $4 trillion dollars to $14 trillion dollars in just over two years. Yes, we’re at war, but we had been at war for seven years in the previous administration as well, with nothing near this kind of expansion of the debt. And now, we are event talking ‘trillion’ in terms of the federal budget deficit rather than what was once ‘billions’.
Consider this– another way of saying one billion dollars is to say one thousand million. Now we’re getting comfortable with saying trillion– that’s one million million dollars. That could make the city of Austin, Texas populated with only millionaires if we were to spread it around. But, as I understand it, thinking in this fashion is the new vogue way of being modest.
Cheers! –DS
P.S. – Take a look at the Heritage Foundation’s report by James Sherk on the salary differences between federal workers and their private counterparts in an article entitled “Private Subsidies for Government Workers“.
