From the very source you quote above.....

"But in October, Obama told a group of African-American journalists that "high-skilled workers in government are slightly underpaid. Lower-skilled workers are slightly overpaid relative to the private sector." And there is evidence to support that conclusion."

It then reports that, "secretaries and administrative assistants in the federal government earned an average salary last year of $40,019 — nearly $10,000 more than the $30,845 average salary paid in the private sector."

The report goes on to say salary comparisons typically do "not include benefits — which everyone agrees on average are better for federal workers."

"The Republican Party is having difficulty in selecting their presidential nominee."

You think one non-binding caucus and one primary in a small state are evidence of difficulty in selecting a nominee? Difficulty is a "brokered convention", not the normal process of a primary that gives the media and opponents a chance to openly vet a candidate prior to selection. This is a healthy thing, not "difficulty".

This country would be a lot better off if Obama had been subject to the same level of scrutiny prior to his election. Instead, other than from Hillary's campaign, he was shielded from harsh examination, protected from the vetting process. As a result, we got one of the least capable and least prepared presidents ever elected in American history.

Uh, the Justice Department is inseparable from the President. They are the same branch of gov't. See "separation of powers" post above.

"right/wrong" direction is a better judge of Obama's leadership than a hypothetical matchup against other candidates. the "best" conclusion you can draw from the head-to-head matchups is that Obama is disliked less than the competition, not that he or his policies are "liked" at all.

Boulder's business owners are committing first degree environmental murder in the most egregious ways imaginable just to pad their bottom lines. Their desperate attempts to lure customers into their dens of commercialism have included the following offenses.

No paranoid hyperbole here. I hope DAVID M. JOHNSON has friends looking out for him. He clearly shouldn't be allowed anywhere near sharp objects.

Hear Hear!

"Us guys" didn't say "why things can't work", the trade association representing the companies that actually *do* the payroll tax withholdings out of each paycheck are the "guys" with the warning. If you don't like their warning, I suggest you take it up with them.

Perhaps you have valuable software development expertise that they lack. Maybe you can write the code and get it installed at each payroll processing company on time without bugs in far less time than their own engineers. I'm sure they'd appreciate your offer to assist.

One thing to consider, any mistakes will likely end up with the offending payroll processing company getting sued by the U.S. Government. If I were you, I'd be sure to double-check your code and run it through extensive QA so you're 100% certain there are no bugs. We're talking about government compliance here. Oh wait, you won't have time for that will you? There's not enough time!

That's funny. I thought the unions were the fourth arm of government. Most union employees are government employees after all....

SS tax money is accrued to the general fund, there isn't any special account that keeps it safe. So, yes SS is in trouble down the road (if you believe SS revenues have been socked away against future payments), and it's in trouble immediately (read: today) if you understand that the U.S. government has already crossed the line into having an unsustainable amount of debt.

And the reality is because SS doesn't actually have Al Gore's "trust fund lock box", it *is* a Ponzi scheme *by definition*. It takes money from new participants (workers) and pays it out to older participants (retirees). The difference is that in a Ponzi scheme, the participants are "willing", whereas SS participants are "coerced" by law.

"Simple".

Wrong. Not so simple.

Few people have bothered to look into the mechanics of how it would be implemented. Turns out, the 2 month plan is unworkable because of the way social security taxes are collected (on the first $110,000 of income). The bill spells out that everything has to be prorated to ensure the tax holiday only covers the first $18,350 of income in those first two months.

Without this proration, a high-earner (e.g., someone who makes $55,000 per month for instance) could get the tax break on their full FICA tax bill, whereas a lower wage earner (e.g., someone who makes $2,000 per month) would only get the tax break on their first $4,000 leaving the rest of their income for the year taxed at the higher rate.

The trade group for payroll processing companies (like ADP) has said there isn't enough time to write all the news software to do the withholdings the right way. The bill the Senate passed can't be implemented in time. Unless the tax break is for the entire year, the group says everyone's taxes go up anyway, just because they can't roll out the changes to the withholdings algorithms in time.

You're not seeing this storyline because it sort of puts the damper on the political posturing (which umtanum has done so well). Here's a reference to a story on that right-wing news site, ABC News (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/two-month-payroll-tax-holiday-passed-by-senate-pushed-by-president-cannot-be-implemented-properly-experts-say/) and the original letter from the National Payroll Reporting Consortium (http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/NPRC%20Letter%20re%20HR%203630.pdf).

"Dems can position themselves as budget hawks because they are."

You're kidding right?