WASHINGTON – Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, issued the following statement today after President Obama proposed a two-year freeze on civilian pay for federal workers.
“Freezing civilian pay for federal workers is a step in the right direction, but it does not go far enough to shrink the size of our bloated government,” Hatch said. “The President should also cut or freeze the number of federal workers, which is precisely what the Reduce and Cap the Federal Workforce Act that I introduced recently would accomplish.”
Obama’s freeze proposal for 2011 and 2012 could save $ 2 billion for the remainder of this fiscal year. Hatch’s legislation would limit and reduce the number of civilian federal workers to February 2009 levels. The federal civilian workforce has increased 20 percent since 2008, going from 1.2 million to 1.43 million.
“The federal government is growing at breakneck speed, and it is time to rein in our bloated bureaucracy before it bankrupts our nation and the taxpayers,” Hatch said. “To put a halt to big government requires more than half measures; it requires an assault on multiple fronts to combat this runaway growth.”
Hatch has proposed a number of solutions to cut the budget and shrink the size of government during the 111th Congress. Besides the Reduce and Cap the Federal Workforce Act, Hatch has introduced a resolution to require Congress to balance the federal budget. He also proposed limiting government spending to the historic average of 20 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).