Nice work if you can get it.
We say this after two reports that caught our eye. The first was a dispatch by the Reason Foundation, which reminded us that President Obama — who as Leader of the Free World pulls down $400,000 a year plus public housing — isn’t the best-compensated federal employee.
That distinction is enjoyed by Bill Johnson, chief executive officer of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Johnson’s total 2013 compensation came to $5.9 million, most of which came not from his base salary of about $700,000 but from performance incentives and deferred compensation.
But New York’s no slouch, either. The Empire Center this week released its annual report on the New York state government payroll. At SeeThroughNY.net, you can look at the pay of more than 287,431 people who worked in the state’s executive, legislative or judicial branches last year.
The highest paid? For the second year in a row, the title went to Antonio Alfonso, a teaching professor and chairman of the Department of Surgery at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center. Last year, he earned $1,086,145.
Now, we’re not against paying talented people what they are worth. But when taxpayers find themselves supporting payrolls that put government workers in the top 1 percent of income earners, the answer isn’t to hike taxes on these people or even cut their pay. It’s to privatize the enterprises that employ them.
Because if these state-run or state-subsidized enterprises are really getting value for those big salary dollars, they’ll have no trouble making it in the private sector.