First Teachers, Now Federal Workers

Obama picks his enemies list pretty carefully.

Republicans and wingnuts he runs from (just ask Shirley Sherrod how the Obama administration treated her.)

But teachers and government workers - traditionally staunch allies of Democrats - those people Obama likes to go after.

Teachers have already noticed.

How could they not after Central Falls, Rhode Island and Race to the Top?

And more is coming once the NCLB re-authorization gets under way.

Yesterday, Obama served notice to federal workers that he is going to throw them under the boss in order to triangulate for his 2012 re-election campaign too.

The Daily News reports federal workers got the notice:

Irate federal workers in New York had a few choice words for President Obama's decision Monday to freeze their wages for the next two years.

"That's why Obama's ratings are below [ex-President George W.] Bush's, and that's hard to be unless you're Osama Bin Laden," said Rosemarie Clemmens of Manhattan.

Clemmens, who works for the Social Security Administration, said she voted for Obama but won't again. "I can't wait until I retire," the life-long government worker added.

Even the Secret Service and FBI, among other federal law enforcement agencies, are taking a hit thanks to Obama's decree.

"Federal law enforcement officers have been sacrificing for our country since the attacks on 9/11, and now we're being asked to bear the brunt of a failing economy," said Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association.

"This is disheartening, but it won't dilute our honor for serving our country," he said, adding that a pay freeze should be a last resort, not the first.

Signaling a distinct shift toward austerity, Obama announced a two-year pay freeze for federal workers, saving up to $5 billion in two years, and $28 billion in five.

"The hard truth is getting this deficit under control is going to require some broad sacrifice, and that sacrifice must be shared by the employees of the federal government," Obama said.

Not everybody is being asked to share in the sacrifice.

The hedge fund managers, the Wall Street CEO's and traders, and the banksters aren't being asked to sacrifice at all.

Corporate America just enjoyed its most profitable quarter ever.

But teachers, cops, fire personnel, and government workers are being laid off or having their salaries frozen, their benefits cut and their pensions slashed - all so that the boys on Wall Street can continue to make more money than God.

Again, until the hedge fund criminals, the banskters, the Wall Street CEO's and traders who STEAL for a living are put into jail rather than given government bailouts and assurances of lower taxes, none of this is going to change.

Obama brought change all right - the kind of change Bush used to bring.