The Underpaid Robert Gibbs and Washington's Sense of Entitlement

[Geee]

Politics Daily:

With the capital awash in star-spangled sentiment this week, it seems appropriate to recall a patriotic parable so dangerous that it undermines the governing ethos of both Democrats and Republicans in Washington.

Leaving office in 1953, as biographer David McCullough writes, Harry Truman "traveled home from Washington unprotected by Secret Service agents ... He had come home without salary or pension. He had no income or support from the federal government other than his Army pension of $112.56 a month ... Truman had been forced to take out a loan at the National Bank in Washington in his last weeks as president to tide him over."

The Myth of Cincinnatus -- the Roman general who saved the Republic and then humbly returned to his farm -- is as outmoded in 21st century Washington as remembering that slavery and Prohibition were once in the Constitution. Instead, these days the governing philosophy of governing is that doing good by selflessly working in the White House entitles you to do well for the rest of your life.

Barack Obama bid a grateful farewell to Robert Gibbs Wednesday by stressing to The New York Times that his press secretary "had a six-year stretch now where basically he's been going 24/7 with relatively modest pay." As a senior White House aide, Gibbs modestly earned $172,200 last year. That income alone -- leaving out any earnings by his wife -- would put Gibbs in the upper 8 percent of all American families, according to 2009 Census figures.

Yes, Washington and its close-in suburbs are expensive places to live. But it is a safe guess that most print reporters who pepper Gibbs with questions at his daily briefings make less than $172,000 a year -- and they somehow manage to live in Washington as well. Salaries for federal judges (all of whom boast educational pedigrees that outstrip Gibbs' undergraduate degree from North Carolina State) start at $174,000 and waft skyward to $223,000 for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.