WHY DO WE STAND FOR FEDERALIES LIVING LARGE WHILE MILLIONS OF US HAVE NO JOBS?

For the first time in more than half a century, "the average American is both earning less and worth less than four years earlier," the New York Times reported last June.

Total household net worth is nearly 7 percent below what it had been in 2007, the Federal Reserve estimated then.

Per capita income in the U.S. in 2008 was $40,947.  It rose to $41,560 in 2011, an increase of just 1.5 percent.  But because inflation rose more than that, purchasing power declined.

What have been hard times for most Americans have been boom times for the federal government.  Since FY 2008, spending has risen 25 percent.

And good times for federal employees.  Their pay and benefit packages averaged $119,982 in 2008 — more than double the private sector average of $59,909, according to data collected by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  In 2000, federal employees received only 66 percent more in total compensation.

Through 2010 (the last year for which BEA has data), the compensation of government workers continued to rise more than twice as fast as for workers in the private sector.  This despite the fact they work the equivalent of one month less per year.

The budget sequester that began March 1 nominally will reduce projected spending by $85 billion (2.4 percent) through Sep. 30, when the fiscal year ends.  The actual reduction will be only about half that, because most agencies have on hand funds unspent from earlier years.

You wouldn’t think a cut of 1.2 percent in a federal budget that has doubled since FY 2000 would cause much hardship — especially since it isn’t an actual reduction in spending.  Even with the sequester, the government is projected to spend more this fiscal year than last.

The Inspectors General of the various federal agencies have found nearly 17,000 examples of wasteful spending which cost taxpayers at least $67 billion. 

The IG recommendations don’t include what most of us would consider of dubious value during hard times, such as the $1.5 million the National Institutes of Health is spending to study why lesbians get fat, the $325,000  the National Science Foundation is spending in part to build a robot squirrel, or $141,000 the EPA spent to have the Chinese study swine manure. They’re pretty much restricted to straightforward instances of duplication, waste and fraud.  All could be implemented without hurting people who depend on government services.

Which is, I suspect, why they haven’t been. The sequester was Barack Hussein Obama’s idea, but he and his aides are predicting catastrophe if the cuts are actually made.  They want you to pressure Republicans to raise taxes instead.  So they’re making sequester cuts as visible and painful as they can. 

None is more visible than cancelling White House tours.  This will save about $2 million through the end of the fiscal year, the Secret Service says.

This makes 6th graders at St. Paul’s Lutheran school in Waverly, Iowa sad. "The White House is our house; please let us visit." they pleaded in a video.

Are there other ways in which the White House might have saved $2 million?

*Federal workers and retirees owe $3.5 billion in back taxes, the IRS says.  An astounding $833,000 is owed by just 36 senior officials on President Obama’s executive office staff.  If "everybody should pay their fair share," why haven’t they?

*Mr. Obama has a larger staff than President Bush did, and pays them more.  Nearly a third of the 457 people on the White House staff — which includes 3 calligraphers and a chief of staff for the president’s dog — now earn six figures. 

*Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion last year to staff, house, entertain and fly around the country the president and his family, said author Robert Keith Gray.  The British royal family cost taxpayers there just $57.8 million.

The president’s annual vacation in Hawaii cost taxpayers about $4 million, the Hawaii Reporter estimated.  His golf outing with Tiger Woods last month cost more than $1 million.  If Mr. and Mrs. Obama would forego the vacation they’re planning for Martha’s Vineyard in August, that’d save enough to keep the tours running.

"President Obama has spent far more lavishly on White House state dinners than previous chief executives, including nearly $1 million on a 2010 dinner for Mexico’s president," the Washington Examiner reported.  What will be spent on the party Michelle Obama is planning to celebrate her 50th birthday could fund the tours for most of the year.

In the Obama administration, belt tightening is for the little people.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.