President Trump has proposed freezing civilian federal workers pay in 2019.  Instead of journalists actually reporting on the cost of the raise that has been canceled and corresponding benefits to the taxpayer, they chose to repeat Democrat talking points.  They whine about hurting the bureaucrats and trash Trump.  Worse, they retreat to the blatant lie that Trump's tax cut "for the rich" and big corporations has blown a hole in the deficit.

CNN:

That measure, along with a new two-year federal budget and tax cuts heralded by Republicans, have led to accusations Trump is ignoring the federal deficit, despite promising he would address it as president.  The tax plan alone is expected to increase the deficit by $1.4 trillion over 10 years, according to a government estimate.  

"It is outrageous and hypocritical that after spending billions of taxpayer dollars on unnecessary tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations – and as the President boasts about the 'great' state of the American economy, that suddenly the White House finds that there is zero money left to pay a minimal cost-of-living adjustment to the patriotic, dedicated public servants."

The actual facts are that federal corporate and individual taxes have declined a whopping $9 billion in the first ten months of F.Y. 2018, which is a drop in the bucket in an over $4-trillion budget.

The economy is growing much faster than projected precisely because of the tax cuts, and wage growth is the fastest since 2008, which means that Social Security tax receipts are also going up faster because of the tax cuts.  The faster economic growth also has caused food stamp usage, disability claims, and unemployment claims to drop – which also lowers the projected spending.  People are also driving and flying more, which also increases federal revenues.  All of those items are easy to spot as helping reduce the deficit. 

In December 2017, when bureaucrats, Democrats, and the media were fighting to defeat the tax cuts and reform, the CBO put out a garbage number that the tax cuts would increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion over ten years.  By March of 2018, the CBO lowered the estimate to $1 trillion over ten years, and even with that, CNN uses the lie of $1.4 trillion in the above article. 

Anyone with an ounce of common sense or intelligence knows that even the $1 trillion number is bad because growth is substantially higher than projected, but since political power and electing Democrats are more important than telling the truth to the public, the media regurgitate the number. 

CNS News:

The federal government collected a record $1,415,150,000,000 in individual income taxes through the first ten months of fiscal 2018 (October 2017 through July 2018), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

But the federal govenrment [sic] also ran a $683,965,000,000 deficit for those ten months, according to the statement.

The previous record for individual income tax collections in the first ten months of the fiscal year was in fiscal 2017, when the Treasury collected $1,351,409,020,000 in individual income taxes (in constant July 2018 dollars) in the October through July period.

While individual income taxes collected in the first ten month of the fiscal year increased from 2017 to 2018, corporation income tax collections declined.  In the October-through-July period of fiscal 2017, the Treasury collected $239,013,770,000 in corporation income taxes (in constant July 2018 dollars).  In the October-through-July period of fiscal 2018, the Treasury collected $166,004,000,000 in corporation income taxes. 

Interest expense is actually the fastest growing component of the federal budget, and Obama, the Democrats, and the complicit media never minded the $10-trillion increase in debt in eight years.  When Republicans tried to freeze or cut anything other than defense, they were ripped as heartless. 

Interest on the U.S. debt is $363 billion. The U.S. Treasury must pay it to avoid a U.S. debt default. The United States has been fortunate because interest rates have been low.  A worldwide flight to safety increased demand for Treasury notes, lowering rates.  Now that the global economy is strengthening, Treasury yields are rising.  So will interest payments.  Interest on the $21 trillion debt is already the fastest growing federal expense. 

The only time journalists and other Democrats care about the deficit is when Republicans propose letting the people keep more of the money they earn. 

Good journalists would report what federal workers make if they were complaining about a wage freeze.  In 2016, federal workers made an average of $88,809, while the average private-sector worker made $59,458.  With benefits, total compensation was $127,259 vs. $70,764.  Median income in the D.C. area is the highest in the country at $93,294 vs. $55,775.

The pay is great, the benefits are even better, and they take every federal holiday off (Wikimedia Commons).

Democrats, and especially those who describe themselves as socialists and progressives, always complain about income inequality, but the greatest inequality in numbers of people exists between government employees and the rest of us, and every policy I have seen them propose is to transfer more money and power to the government from the rest of us, which will expand, not reduce the gap. 

Federal employees earned 80 percent more in 2016 compared to private sector workers, according to Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at Cato.  Federal employees earn 42 percent more than state and local government workers, he added.

Edwards used Bureau of Economic Analysis data to compare average wages and benefits for the 2.1 million federal civilian employees to the average compensation for the nation's 114 million private sector workers.

The federal average, according to Edwards, has grown significantly higher than the private sector in the past 15 years.  

Adding benefits such as health care and retirement, federal employees have a higher advantage than private sector workers. Average federal compensation reached $127, 259 in 2016, while private sector averages topped out at $70,764 – or $56, 495 lower.

The swamp is deep and consists of politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, and most of the media.  The truth is not important to them, but political power is.

They truly cannot stand that someone who is the opposite of a dictator and a fascist is trying to transfer the power and purse back to the people as fast as he can, and he actually wants to enforce laws Congress passed.