“On the Holmes Front,” with Frank Holmes
If a look into the president’s finances proves anything, it’s this: Joe Biden takes care of his own.
He has no problem putting the well-being of his people ahead of everyone else—especially if it comes at your expense.
It’s at the heart of our policy with China, which sent millions to his son starting 10 years ago.
It defines our policy with Ukraine, which kept Hunter on the budget to the tune of millions of dollars for years.
But the latest example is here at home, where Joe Biden just gave a major part of the Democratic Party’s voting bloc a huge raise — and the money came out of your pocket.
Biden just gave federal bureaucrats their biggest pay raise in more than 40 years, and Republican leaders haven’t done a thing to stop him.
Biden’s proposed pay raise for the federal workforce comes in at a whopping 5.2 percent on average.
That comes on top of last year’s pay raise of 4.6 percent—which GovExec.com described as
That means federal paper-pushers got a 9.8 percent pay raise in two years. Did you?
Government unions met your generosity with their usual gratitude.
“The overall 4.6% pay raise issued by President Biden will represent the largest pay adjustment for federal employees in 20 years,” said American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) National President Everett Kelley last August.
“However, in order to bring federal salaries close to market rates and compensate for the recent surge in inflation, more must be done.”
Labor unions asked for more, so Joe Biden did more—more than he did for you.
The average American’s pay rose only 4.6 percent this fiscal year which ended in September, according to data from the federal government.
That means Joe Biden is waiting to see how you did, then deliberately giving the federal bureaucracy an ever bigger pay hike—funded by your taxes.
“As Americans struggle under Bidenomics, the clown president issues another dictatorial fiat, this time jacking up salary increases for federal bureaucrats by the highest amount in 40 years,” said talk radio host and Fox News personality Mark Levin.
As Americans struggle under Bidenomics, the clown president issues another dictatorial fiat. This time jacking up salary increases for federal bureaucrats by the highest amount in 40 years.https://t.co/zvueiMaIfX
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) December 26, 2023
While the Biden administration gives you historic inflation—the worst price increases in 40 years—the feds get the biggest pay increase since 1980.
And to make matters worse, your taxes pay for the whole thing, making you even poorer!
The average federal government employee makes more money than you do to begin with—almost twice as much.
Data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which oversees the federal workforce, shows the average government bureaucrat’s salary came to $98,943 in 2023—as much as $128,663 in Maryland and $135,078 in Washington, D.C.
How much does the average American make? The median U.S. salary is $58,000 a year, according to the Bureau for Labor Statistics.
But then, unlike you, federal bureaucrats give an enormous majority of their political donations to Democrats.
An incredible 95% of all federal bureaucrats’ political donations went to Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by October 2016, according to an analysis from The Hill of data for feds who worked at 14 government agencies.
Even when Trump supposedly ran the federal bureaucracy, only $743,000 of $1.8 million in donations went to the incumbent president, according to GovExec.com.
Taxing you to give federal bureaucrats a richer salary than you can earn is a form of reverse Robin Hood economics—a wealth transfer from the struggling, productive middle class and working class to the well-to-do, unproductive, Democratic donor base.
With this kind of economic/political warfare taking place, you’d think the Republicans would be up-in-arms…but you’d be wrong.
Biden’s pay hike goes into effect automatically unless Republicans stop it. And although they’ve pared back past presidential pay proposals, this time they’re taking a pass.
Even The Washington Post seemed amazed at how quickly the GOP rolled over for Biden’s bureaucratic budget boost. Congressional Republicans “have been silent on the raise this year.”
“Absent any action by Congress, the recommended raise goes into effect by default,” the paper noted with glee.
It isn’t the first time Biden has taxed you to feed his base, literally. Biden opened office by making the largest increase in U.S. history to food stamps—now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—a whopping 21 percent boost to benefits.
Biden pulled it off with a weird sleight-of-hand that let him bypass Congress: He reconfigured the values of something called the Thrifty Food Plan, which sets the amount of benefits paid out on each EBT card, in a way American Enterprise Institute welfare expert Angela Rachidi called “improper.”
Democrats are more than twice as likely to receive food stamps than Republicans, according to a study from the Pew Research Center.
The last time a president gave a larger pay raise to his federal workforce was Jimmy Carter in 1980—the same year he lost a 44-state landslide to Ronald Reagan.
“Joe Biden giving a raise to federal bureaucrats to shore up the most loyal political base he has is a desperate panic move,” said another conservative commentator.
Joe Biden giving a raise to federal bureaucrats to shore up the most loyal political base he has is a desperate panic move.
— LaughAtLefties (@LaughAtLefties) December 27, 2023
Whether it works or not is irrelevant.
The point is, the entire Democratic Party intends to make you poorer, to make Biden’s base richer, and to make one of its members president for at least four more years.
Voting Democrats out of office isn’t just the smart thing to do; it’s a form of economic self-defense.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”