Why Obama is taking a pay cut

In solidarity with the federal employees receiving reductions in pay as a result of the sequester, the president has opted to return 5 percent of his salary to the government this year. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will also return a portion of his salary. 

|
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
President Barack Obama speaks at the Denver Police Academy in Denver, Wednesday, April 3, 2013. He plans to give back 5 percent of his paycheck in solidarity to the federal employees affected by the sequester.

President Barack Obama plans to give back 5 percent of his pay in a gesture of solidarity with government workers who must take unpaid leave as a result of deep spending cuts that went into effect last month.

The president's self-imposed pay cut would be effective from March 1, when the spending cuts began, and would last through the end of December, an administration official said on Wednesday.

Obama earns $400,000 a year. The official said the president decided on the 5-percent reduction, which would total $20,000, because it would be similar to the level of cuts to non-defense government agencies.

Defense and non-defense discretionary spending has shrunk across the board as a result of reductions under a process known as sequestration. To maintain critical functions, many agencies are making workers take unpaid leave, or furloughs.

The president's gesture comes after the top Defense Department official said he would return part of his salary in an amount equal to pay lost by civilian employees.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will give back the equivalent of 14 days worth of pay to the government, about $10,750, his spokesman said on Tuesday.

Obama's decision was first reported by The New York Times.

Sequestration was originally designed as an outcome so harsh that budget negotiators would find another way to narrow trillion-dollar deficits.

However, Obama would not back away from his insistence that any spending cuts be paid for in part by higher tax revenues, while Republicans, who had conceded higher tax rates on the rich in budget deal in January, refused to agree to any tax hikes.

The $85 billion in overall cuts went into effect after the two sides reached impasse.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Why Obama is taking a pay cut
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0403/Why-Obama-is-taking-a-pay-cut
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe