A fiscally sustainable course

That piece of shit.

After being rebuffed in an attempt to peel back the union protections of federal workers, President Trump took aim elsewhere on Thursday: at their paychecks.

Invoking authority that he and other presidents have used previously, Mr. Trump told Congress he was canceling government pay increases scheduled for next year.

Of course he did. Huge tax cut for the already rich, wage freeze for the people who earn a paycheck.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Mr. Trump said the government would forgo an automatic 2.1 percent pay increase for federal workers scheduled for Jan. 1 and specified that there would be no across-the-board increase for 2019. The letter did not estimate the overall savings from canceling the raises, though it said a related move canceling raises that are based on the workers’ location would save $25 billion.

And it would save even more to pay them nothing at all. Trump keeps wages down at Mar-a-lago by hiring temporary workers from poor countries at the very same time as he rants and raves about keeping foreign workers out of the country.

“We must maintain efforts to put our nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases,” the president wrote.

But they can afford huge tax cuts. They can afford the expense of flying Trump to a golf course every third day or so, and secret service protection for his goons sons when they travel for his company. They can afford whatever luxury Trump demands, but they can’t afford to raise wages slightly at a time when the cost of housing, education, and health care is shooting up.

Mr. Trump’s letter came days after a federal judge struck down key provisions of three executive orders the president had signed in May that had made it easier to fire federal workers and limited the power of their unions. The administration appeared to be dragging its feet this week on complying with the judge’s orders, with some agencies telling managers and union officials that the new policies remained in effect until further notice.

Many legal experts were puzzled because the orders were supposed to apply immediately.

Well I don’t suppose they were really “puzzled.” Trump is a lawless monster who hates anything that benefits anyone other than brass-haired loud-mouthed millionaires from Queens.

But while saying it was still considering further action in the case, the administration acknowledged at least a temporary setback on Wednesday, when the Office of Personnel Management put out updated guidance that rescinded the portions of the instructions that the judge had struck down.

Union officials in at least one agency, the Social Security Administration, exulted as they were told that they would be allowed back into offices that managers had evicted them from when the executive orders took effect this summer.

That’s good. The eviction move had made it impossible to do their jobs.

Via Rob at Miscellany Room

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