U.S. Representative

Rep. Dennis Ross (R-Fla.), chairman of the Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service and Labor Policy subpanel, opened the hearing by noting that “federal employees on average earned $101,628 in total compensation in 2010, nearly four times more than the average private-sector worker.”

He contended that President Obama’s two-year pay freeze for federal workers, enacted in December, “wasn’t really a freeze” because it did not include promotions. He decried the fact that Obama’s 2012 budget calls for hiring 15,000 more federal workers.

“Our taxpayers can no longer be asked to foot the bill for these federal employees while watching their own salaries remain flat and their benefits erode,” Ross said...(read more)