With the government running huge deficits and average family incomes stagnating in the recession, it is unseemly that federal worker pay continues to soar. I’ve called for an immediate freeze to federal worker pay, at least until the economy recovers and private worker pay starts catching up.

Meanwhile, the TaxPayers Alliance has been making a similar case about overpaid government workers in Britain. Their complaints have paid off with news this week that both Labor and Conservative leaders have plans to freeze pay for portions of Britain’s civil service. According to the TPA:

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne pledged to freeze all pay for public sector workers earning over £18,000 a year, exempting serving army officers. The night before, realising how popular and necessary such a step is with beleaguered taxpayers, Alistair Darling called for a freeze for the 750,000 highest-paid public servants.

Either freeze idea would work just fine on this side of the Atlantic–freezing wages for those earning more than $18,000 or freezing wages for just the top 40 percent or so of the civil service elite. And while we are at it, let’s have a go with Osborne’s other pay proposals:

He said that he would cut the pay of ministers by five per cent and then freeze it for the rest of Parliament, adding that a Conservative government would cut the number of MPs by ten per cent and close its unaffordable pension scheme to new members.