Biden's Hotel Bill for Turkey Visit: $625K

    Vice President Joe Biden just returned Sunday from a three-nation trip that concluded with a 48 hour visit to Turkey. The vice president, his wife, and his entourage arrived in Turkey via Ukraine Friday evening around 7:30 local time for meetings with President Erdogan  and other government officials. Biden departed for Washington, DC Sunday after meeting with Patriarch Bartholomew of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The stay in Turkey alone racked up a hotel bill of approximately $624,734.
    The notice of the hotel contract was posted online uncharacteristically quickly, appearing on the very day of Biden's departure from Turkey. The documents called for 200 rooms and one large conference room at the Hilton Harbiye in Istanbul:

    Numerous other hotels were considered but not deemed suitable due to various reasons including lack of sufficient rooms, distance from planned events, and even ongoing renovations at one facility.
    Documents related to lodging for the the Moroccan and Ukrainian legs of Biden's trip have not yet been posted.

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Biden: 'Why Would a Business Go' to Delaware?

    Vice President Joe Biden inadvertently may have produced the worst public service announcement for a state since  Maryland's Governor William Donald Schaefer referred to the Eastern Shore of his state as the "[outhouse]" of Maryland. Biden recently recorded a White House White Board video to boost the president's latest plan to spend billions on those ubiquitous "crumbling roads and bridges." To provide an example, Biden turned his sights on his home state, the "little state of Delaware":

[Transcript, 2:50 to 3:29] Take a look at my little state of Delaware.  I'm very proud of Delaware because I know it so well having represented it for so long.  There are 6,357 miles of public roads in the state of Delaware. Sixteen percent of them are in poor condition. How does that little state compete? Why would a business go, why would an enterprise get engaged in a place where there wasn't sufficient rail, or the roads weren't good, where the bridges were in disrepair? Businesses go where they can increase productivity. Productivity relates to how rapidly they can get things to market, how cheaply they can get 'em to market, and how often they can get 'em to market.

    Asked to comment on the vice president's remarks, Kelly M. Bachman, press secretary for Governor Jack Markell responded:

The Vice President has been as great a champion for Delaware as we have and has only helped improve the image of our great state across the country and around the world. We should always want to do better, but we're encouraged that our economy is improving and our job growth is outpacing the nation's. 

I don't speak for the Vice President, but I suspect he did not view his words as disparaging and we do not take them that way.  As a point of comparison, Delaware's 16% of roads in poor condition, although certainly not good, is better than our surrounding states. 

Both the President and Vice President continue to show the necessary sense of urgency to strengthen our transportation system and Governor Markell appreciates their support and advocacy. The condition of infrastructure in parts of the country are in an unacceptable condition and our advantages in the global economy will shrink rapidly if we don't make needed investments. 

Businesses and entrepreneurs have more choices than ever about where to locate, expand and hire - and a safe, reliable transportation infrastructure plays an important role in their decision making process. If we want to successfully compete for jobs in the global economy, we must invest in our people and our infrastructure.

    In spite of the benefit of the doubt the governor's office gave the vice president, it seems a safe bet that after Biden returns to Delaware for good, he won't be looking for work designing welcome signs for his home state.

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

House of Representatives Moves to Reverse President's Executive Order

    On December 28, I broke the story about President Obama's executive order lifting the federal pay freeze that had been in effect for two years. The Washington Examiner is reporting that the House Republicans introduced a bill today to reverse the effects of that order:

House Republicans proposed a bill today that would cut the pay of Vice President Joe Biden and other federal officials, noting that the executive order that President Obama signed to raise their pay costs $11 billion in new spending. 

“The President has once again demonstrated his penchant for unrestrained spending by giving federal employees an across the board pay hike and sticking the rest of us with the $11 billion bill,” Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., the lead sponsor on the bill, said in a statement today. “At a time when the average federal worker compensation is nearly double the median U.S. household income, and attrition from the federal workforce is already at an all-time low, we simply cannot afford this unnecessary and unilateral action by the President.” 

Obama’s executive order raises Biden’s salary $225,521 to $231,900. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, would see an $1,100 raise while the Senate majority and minority leaders would get paid an extra $1,000, according to Fox. “The House and Senate, however, voted down the congressional pay increase earlier this year,” the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee notes.

     Results!

Guns and Executive Action

    Politico is reporting that Joe Biden's task force on gun violence has 19 "executive actions" queued up for consideration by President Obama.  Since an executive action is a unilateral action by the president, the administration will have to walk a fine line in the presentation and implementation of these ideas.  By leaking the number, the issuance of less than 19 will result in speculation about which actions were deemed too extreme to implement or too weak to bother with.  Also, since any of these actions could have been taken at any point in the previous four years, the administration will open itself up to questions about why nothing was done sooner.

    While "executive action" is a rather broad term, the history of "executive orders" and gun control is quite narrow.  The only executive order specifically addressing gun control that my research turn up was issued by Dwight Eisenhower on February 16, 1960:

Executive Order 10863--Authorizing the Attorney General to seize arms and munitions of war, and other articles, pursuant to section 1 of title VI of the act of June 15, 1917, as amended...
Section 1. The Attorney General is hereby designated under section 1 of Title VI of the act of June 15, 1917, as amended by section 1 of the act of August 13, 1953, as a person duly authorized to seize and detain arms or munitions of war or other articles, and to seize and detain any vessel, vehicle, or aircraft containing such items or which has been, or is being, used in exporting or attempting to export such arms or munitions of war or other articles, whenever an attempt is made to export or ship from or take out of the United States such arms or munitions of war or other articles in violation of law, or whenever it is known, or there is probable cause to believe, that such arms or munitions of war or other articles are intended to be, or are being or have been, exported or removed from the United States in violation of law.

     Even this order did not establish a new executive power, but simply designated the attorney general as an authorized person under a previously existing law to seize arms or munitions being illegally imported or exported from the country.  It seems likely that any executive action or order by President Obama would be in the same vein.  On the other hand, for an administration whose previous "executive actions" included allowing illegal guns to end up in the hands of Mexican drug gangs (Fast and Furious,) the president may welcome this opportunity to show he can be tough on guns, even if it means that legal gun owners in the United States bear the brunt of the new sanctions.

Fiscal Cliff Looms! Federal Government Gives Raises! [Updated]

    As the country hurtles toward the fiscal cliff, President Obama signed an executive order cryptically titled "Adjustments of Certain Rates of Pay."  The text of the order on the White House website contains no details, but a copy with the attachments is available at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  A cursory examination of the document seems to indicate that those "adjustments" are generally in an upward direction.  For example, "Rates of Basic Pay for the Executive Schedule." Here are the rates that were effective in 2012, frozen at the 2010 levels:

RATES OF BASIC PAY FOR THE EXECUTIVE SCHEDULE (EX)
RATES FROZEN AT 2010 LEVELS
EFFECTIVE JANUARY 2012
Level I  $  199,700
Level II    179,700
Level III    165,300
Level IV    155,500
Level V    145,700 

    Here are the rates in the just-signed Executive Order:

SCHEDULE 5--EXECUTIVE SCHEDULE
(Effective on the first day of the first applicable pay period beginning after March 27, 2013)
Level I  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $200,700
Level II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  180,600
Level III. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  166,100
Level IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  156,300
Level V  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  146,400

    Not much of an increase, but an increase all the same.  Other raises are included for, among others, foreign service employees, senators, representatives, and even Vice President Biden.

    Combine federal employee raises with tax increases hitting January 1st, increases that reach down to the lowest level of wage earners with the expiration of the payroll tax holiday, and the government might be initiating a winter storm that will make this week's Euclid look like a few flurries.

UPDATE: The website FedSmith.com posted on this yesterday.  Since that blog is targeted at federal employees, the end of the freeze is of course presented as good news:

As most readers know, President Obama proposed a pay freeze on civilian employee pay that was applicable all federal civilian employees. This was way back in 2010. It did not impact pay raises as a result of promotions or within-grade increases but it was good political theater and the move was supposed to save the government money which it has probably done. 

The White House said at the time that the pay freeze would save $2 billion for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, $28 billion over the next five years, and more than $60 billion over the next 10 years. We do not know if that much has or will be saved or if it was political rhetoric in lieu of actual facts. The president noted that  action had to be taken because of “the massive deficits we inherited and the unsustainable fiscal course that we are on. Doing so will take some very tough choices.” 

But, as readers know, the pay freeze is still in effect today and the deficits in the past four years have swamped previous yearly deficits by adding as much as $1.4 trillion in new debt in one year alone. The other three years of Mr. Obama’s presidency have also exceeded more than $1 trillion each year (despite the federal employee pay freeze) due primarily to increased government spending in the past several years. 

But, the good news is that the pay freeze will end in late March.

The reason: A new executive order has been issued providing for a new pay schedule beginning “on the first day of the first applicable pay period beginning after March 27, 2013.” The pay raise will generally be about 1/2 of 1%... 

The legal authority for the new executive order is in the continuing resolution that is currently in effect... 

For those who may also be wondering if Congress could change the pay rates or completely eliminate the pay raise, the answer is that it could be done. However, the change would have to pass both the House and the Senate and, as a practical matter, the Senate has not displayed any independence from the desires of the White House. So any change is unlikely (although not impossible) prior to the effective date. 

After most readers had an extra holiday on Christmas Eve, and with the announcement of a pay raise—even a small one—many of our readers may be looking at the new year with a more positive outlook. 

UPDATE (1/1/13): The House has voted to reject the raises in the president's executive order.