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I’m a federal employee who worked in private sector for 25 years. Premium benefits? Like what? The health insurance is so expensive we use my husbands, I pay a lot for the dental, vision and life insurance I do get...what else is there? I’m on the FERS retirement plan, and that’s nothing to write home about either.

We don’t get a Christmas ham, logo’ed mug, or even a pen with our agency name on it. You guys that buy into the lie of how great the fed employees have it are no different then the occutards crying about the 1 percenters.

I know. Sometimes I feel like the world’s biggest sucker.

I worked my way through college and paid the loans off myself. My husband and I just SOCKED away cash for years, saved for a down payment, bought a home, sadly, at the height of that ridiculous housing bubble, and now BOOM, we’re $50K underwater. That’s what we get for saving, playing it safe ... living within our means.

We continue to try to hang on to the house, and I’m very sure we’re not going to retire as well off as we once could have for sure. However, I’ll go to my grave knowing I did the right thing ...did not take out a loan I couldn’t pay back ...did not walk away and let someone else foot the bill.

I’ve learned from this whole thing ...and hopefully my kids will learn from it also. I do feel the good people of this world will eventually win out, but for now, it’s a stinking rotten mess. I also get very disgusted by the people I meet in my daily life who are immigrating here only to get on the dole. The entire world thinks America is their cash cow.

We are told the average compensation in Washington is now greater than the average American. The Public employee doesn't have private sector billionaires and millionaires to skew the average up. This makes the disparity even greater. So this is not true? Why the Boston Mayor's secretary makes $117,000 in salary alone. Throw in the benefits and she makes more that twice a private sector secretary, Nepotism is rampant in the Massachusetts public sector. Mom4melody, you got a long way to go to calling us liars.

I hear you. But it is liberal 1% who keep funding liberal political campaigns. The poor sure have no money to fund, but they will take a cash pay off to ride a bus to nowhere. And unfortunately the ‘rich’ 1% so called conservatives hang with the 1% rich liberals, and itch and scratch when the ones who fund liberal campaigns demand the ‘rich’ pay more taxes. WE the people are viewed as trailer park trash, when in fact drag a large denomination of cash through their gated communities and they attach themselves like flies on poop.

Whoa! You say FERS is no big deal? You either don’t understand it or have never actually worked on the other side to compare, or both. You OWN your payroll deductions. FICA guys don’t own anything except hope that it might one day be a benefit. When you leave the gummint you have the option of taking ALL your money with you-—FICA guys don’t own a dime.

And you can get subsidized vision, dental, and life? I’m sure you don’t mean to sound ungrateful but do you have any idea how many folks can’t get that on ANY terms? Please don’t whine about how tough things are in your Federal job——if you don’t like it, learn a trade and shop for another.

Here’s a hint: I had a short federal career about four decades ago. When I left I drew my retirement. I used the money to build an apartment rental unit. That unit has repaid the full value of my retirement each year since, for the past four decades. And by the way-—there’s plenty of room to move up in the federal system. Be good at what you do. Study and learn more skills. Get smarter than your boss. Keep track of what your unit is doing and study what is going on in the larger department.

I occasionally have time to write stuff like this. You don’t. You should be studying SOMETHING so get crackin’.