President Bush has decided to slash the locality pay raise that was initially designed to close the gap between federal and private employee salaries. Under the 1990 Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act, white-collar government employees were slated to get a 2.5 percent increase in their base pay in 2008, in addition to locality raises averaging 12.5 percent.

That may not sound outrageous to some folks, but here in the Venomous Household that locality pay has been one of the only financial incentives for VH to remain in his government job. Our town is full of contractors, many of whom retired at a lower rank than my husband did, and their salaries consistently put his to shame. Oh, sure, they have to travel quite often, but after the month that VH had to spend living in Virginia last summer for his job, that travel doesn’t seem like such a drawback anymore.

The real pisser is the President’s justification for it, which I quote:

“Full statutory civilian pay increases would cost $16.4 billion in 2008 alone,” the president wrote in issuing his plan. “Such cost increases would force deep cuts in discretionary spending or federal employment to stay within budget. Either outcome would unacceptably interfere with our nation’s ability to secure the homeland and pursue the war on terrorism.”

Emphasis mine.

Why the emphasis? Because meanwhile the government continues to pay $49.4 billion in agricultural subsidies. In fact, in Bush’s term discretionary spending shot up 48.5 percent (more than 4 times the level under Clinton), with huge chunks going to fund programs that have proven to be unworkable or unnecessary… or both.

Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group, points to education spending. Adjusted for inflation, it’s up 18 percent annually since 2001, thanks largely to Bush’s No Child Left Behind act.

The 2002 farm bill, he said, caused agriculture spending to double its 1990s levels.

Then there was the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit — the biggest single expansion in the program’s history — whose 10-year costs are estimated at more than $700 billion.

And the 2005 highway bill, which included thousands of “earmarks,” or special local projects stuck into the legislation by individual lawmakers without review, cost $295 billion.

Fortunately, the President has approved a 3.5 percent raise for military members. You’ll never hear me complain about that. I do, however, wonder at the logic behind shafting those employees who train those military members, as my husband does, along with all of those other hard-working federal civilian employees who keep the country running.