Federal pay now double private sector

Chris Edwards at the Cato Institute has plotted BEA data showing how federal pay (salary+benefits) has risen relative to the private sector:

Edwards explains how this happened:

Members of Congress who have large numbers of federal workers in their districts relentlessly push for expanding federal worker compensation. Also, the Bush administration had little interest in fiscal restraint, and it usually got rolled by the federal unions. The result has been an increasingly overpaid elite of government workers, who are insulated from the economic reality of recessions and from the tough competitive climate of the private sector.

Hat tip: Instapundit