Federal government employees, those folks who can’t be fired, who got a paid holiday on Monday and whose pay is higher and work hours lower than the rest of us, are worried about a GOP-controlled Senate. Joe Davidson writes in the Washington Post:

“If the GOP takes over the Senate in November, they will have carte blanche authority to push through a series of damning proposals that have been successfully blocked for the past two years,” said J. David Cox Sr., president of the American Federation of Government Employees. He cited proposed cuts in retirement benefits, workers compensation and student loan forgiveness. (snip)

For Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, a central question in determining how politicians would deal with federal employees is “Do you support or oppose the Ryan budget?”

The House-approved spending plan advanced in April by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) drew more anger from federal employee organizations than other recent bills, except those that froze their pay rates. “Chairman Ryan’s budget sends a clear message — federal employees, and the work they perform, aren’t valued,” Joseph A. Beaudoin, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, said at the time.

It’s not that Republicans don’t value federal employees, it’s that they value them realistically: they are not smarter, harder working, or more virtuous than the rest of us, and don’t deserve to be paid far more lavishly than the taxpayers that support them. Particularly galling is the difficulty of firing people for incompetence.

It is now beyond dispute that the Democrats are the party of government, advancing the interests opf government over those of the general citizenry.

Hat tip: Ed Lasky