> But your public sector workers demand to be kept in the style to which they have been accustomed, and the money has to come from the government's "real" spend

> But your public sector workers demand to be kept in the style to which they have been accustomed, and the money has to come from the government's "real" spending. In America, public workers took pay cuts for the past 5-6 years since the federal pay tables were frozen (not increasing for inflation, so spending power decreased) and mandatory health care costs went up! In America, I haven't seen any evidence of public sector employees (the public sector is huge, NASA engineers, Air Force pilots, National Park Rangers, etc) 'demanding' more pay. The only thing I've seen that can be categorized as evidence of this is top tier engineers leaving NASA & FFRDCs to work in the private sector. Not once have I seen a NASA employee go "We successfully lobbied Congress for more pay!".