Posted on 11/19/2010 2:09:13 PM PST by FromLori
While Those Of Us Who Pay Their Salaries Suffer (Rest of title)
Do you remember the days when getting elected to Congress or choosing to work for the government was referred to as "public service"? The idea was that you would be making a sacrifice for the greater good of the country. Well, those days are long gone. Today, getting elected to Congress or working for the federal government is a good way to get rich. Median household income in the United States fell from $51,726 in 2008 to $50,221 in 2009, and yet the personal wealth of members of Congress and the salaries of federal workers (especially at the higher levels) continue to explode. A lot of corrupt politicians and federal fat cats are raking in stunning amounts of cash, and we are the ones paying the bill. There is certainly nothing wrong with making a lot of money, but does it seem right that so many of our "public servants" are getting filthy rich while so many of the rest of us are barely getting by?
Posted below are 12 facts that will blow your mind. Most Americans have no idea just how obscenely wealthy many members of Congress are, and most Americans are totally clueless about how cushy some of these U.S. government jobs are. If there is one place in America where the good times are still rolling (other than Wall Street), it would have to be Washington D.C.
Members of Congress and employees of the government are supposed to work for us. We are the ones who pay their salaries. But today, they are the ones "living the dream" while most of the rest of us scramble just to survive from month to month....
#1 According to an article in the Hill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's net worth soared from $13.7 million in 2008 to $21.7 million in 2009.
#2 In 2005, 7420 federal workers were making $150,000 or more per year. In 2010, a whopping 82,034 federal workers are making $150,000 or more per year. That is more than a tenfold increase in just five years.
#3 More than half of the members of the U.S. Congress are millionaires.
#4 The total compensation that the U.S. government workforce is going to take in this year is approximately 447 billion dollars.
#5 Today, all members of Congress earn at least $175,000. This is far, far more than the average American makes.
#6 60 percent of the federal government workforce is represented by labor unions.
#7 The median wealth of a U.S. Senator in 2009 was 2.38 million dollars.
#8 In 2005, the U.S. Department of Defense had just nine civilians earning $170,000 or more. When Barack Obama took office, the U.S. Department of Defense had 214 civilians earning $170,000 or more. In June 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense had 994 civilians earning $170,000 or more.
#9 Insider trading is perfectly legal for members of the U.S. Congress - and they refuse to pass a law that would change that.
#10 According to a recent study conducted by the Heritage Foundation, federal workers earn 30 to 40 percent more money on average than their counterparts in the private sector.
#11 When you factor in such things as retirement and health care benefits, the compensation gap between federal workers and private sector employees gets even larger. Just consider the following quote from the Heritage Foundation study mentioned above....
"Including non-cash benefits adds to this disparity. The average private-sector employer pays $9,882 per employee in annual benefits, while the federal government pays an average of $32,115 per employee."
#12 The personal wealth of members of the U.S. Congress collectively increased by more than 16 percent from 2008 to 2009.
So can the U.S. government continue to afford to shell out nearly half a trillion dollars to federal employees every single year?
Of course not.
The truth is that the U.S. government is flat broke and yet most of our politicians still seem extremely resistant to consider anything that would even slow down the wild spending that has been going on.
So what do we get for the $447 billion that we are spending on federal workers every single year?
Not a whole lot - unless you consider paperwork, bureaucracy and a gigantic pile of ridiculous regulations to be a good thing.
America needs a fundamental shift in attitude. Instead of expecting a "nanny state" to take care of us, we should desperately try to reshape the federal government into a much smaller entity that will finally get off our backs.
We have been living beyond our means for decades, and we cannot afford to pay for this bloated behemoth of a government for much longer.
Hopefully Americans will wake up and do something about this nonsense before it is too late. Because right now the federal government has become an out of control monster that is gobbling up everything in sight.
A women friend of the family makes $80K+ as a clerk in the local federal building. Mickey Mouse job, No college degree. Insane.....
When they say “Redistribute the Wealth”, they meant your wealth.
Now pay your taxes, the hard working government needs a raise. :)
We need to impose term limits and cut the pay of Congress Critters..(including the stipulation that raises Congressional Pay each year)
Is military pay included in this number?
Just askin'
LMAO. So what are ya gonna do little doggie? Are ya gonna bark all year or are ya gonna bite?
First order of business - kill the public sector unions.
Second order - get rid of the stupid pointless agencies like the TVA and sell off (there was a thread earlier today here on FR about this).
That’ll cut quite a nice chunk (but only a sliver of what is needed).
Pay rates are all over the map. The Heritage Foundation study has a few flaws, among them, not adjusting for the high cost of living in DC (granted, it’s partly due to the high salaries, it goes hand-in-hand) or the fact that $8/hr clerks at Wal Mart don’t have a federal equivalent. I’d rather keep the salaries and get rid of the ridiculous benefits they get.
As far as Congress...that’s a tough one. If we truly want “citizen legislators”, we can’t cut the pay so low that a person who is not independently wealthy couldn’t afford to be in Congress and still support their family and pay their bills. However, it shouldn’t be a meal ticket either.
What about a law stating that your pay as a US Representative or Senator will equal your most recent full-time job before being elected, adjusted for inflation and the cost of living in DC? That would mean that someone like Obama, whose last private sector job was for an ice cream stand, would make about $5/hr...lol...
“A women friend of the family makes $80K+ as a clerk”
I doubt it. A clerk job in the Fed is typically a GS5, 7, or 9. So the 28K-52K range, plus locality pay. Now I will grant you that 52K plus 15% locality pay is a lot for a clerk, but that would be after about 20 years of service.
I can’t argue that some federal employees are over paid and Government is too big. But 80K ain’t possible for a clerk.
Federal employee to private sector worker:
“What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is ours, which means that sooner or later it will be mine.
I lot of apples and oranges in this article, e.g. who cares what the net worth of those is Congress. With that said, increases do need investigation in some cases - hopefully someone is looking at that each year.
Also, I’d say that having to live is DC has got to be worth $25K to $50K more annually - so salaries aren’t that bad. The bad part is the benefit levels and the number of workers.
This type of article doesn’t do much to advance the position that something needs to be done - targeting is needed.
Just out of curiosity, are there any sources quoted for this? I'm a Federal employee, and I sure haven't seen any massive payraises since 2005. It makes me wonder if a)the author is making this statistic up out of whole cloth or b) there was a change in how compensation is counted, like health care is now counted towards salary, etc.
I find it VERY hard to believe this stat since *no* GS level job makes more than $129k (that's a GS-15 step 10) in base pay. It is possible to make more in overtime or locality pay (someone in Hawaii or LA makes more than someone in Nowhere, Iowa), but that's still a heck of a jump.
I’m glad to see a voice of reason on this thread. The above list is a mixed bag. Existing personal wealth of congressmen does not necessarily imply that they abused their positions.
Frankly, $175,000 for a Congressional salary isn’t really that high. We need to pay them well enough to ensure that they have no excuse to seek outside, inappropriate remuneration. Do they get funds to help them maintain two residences? That can be really expensive.
Well, some DID get their *sses bitten last election. LOL
Having been a supervisor in both State and federal government for those who are not familiar, it is virtually impossible to layoff or fire an individual - indeed cuts must come generally en-masse from the elected officials, unrelated to personal productivity.
Today the government system of compensation has gotten completely out of hand. The disturbing thing is that at least forty percent of current government operations could be handled by competitive enterprise. Especially considering that today virtually every American citizen has ready access to product information that should be competitive. That is always what made America great - a kind of economic natural selection. And it is why the so-called "Progressives" are actually quite stupid and reactionary. They are of course are in it for their own power over others.
This includes teachers. The argument for higher public education teacher pay is totally irrational considering the reasonable question of, would you go back and pay WalMart more money if they foisted on you a defective flat-screen?
There is NO management in government circles, witness Barack Obama.
Of course we can, like Zimbabwe, just print more dollars.
Johnny Suntrade
Agreed. Some of the stories about Federal workers I have seen posted here on FR in the past few weeks are totally BS. Unfortunately some people buy into them hook, line and sinker. What is especially frustrating is that some of these tales could be easily debunked with a few minutes of research but not many Freepers (who usually are sharp as knives) seem willing to do so on this issue.
I am amazed at some of the comments on here. Its really every man for himself isn’t it? You may claim to be a conservative, be registered on THE conservative internet site, FR, but by God the federal government isn’t out of control because you or your brother or your buddy works for it and that makes it all ok. Bullshit.
It does seem that FR is being dumbed down in the seven years I have been here. Anyone else see that trend of posters going off half cocked without ever reading the post or the thread?
Look you are going to get agreement from many, many Federal employees that the central government is out of control and inefficient in many ways. However, the Federal government does do some things really well (e.g. the finest, most technologically advanced military on earth). Many Feds can even find common ground on some of the bonafide criticisms of the workforce but people don’t have to make up tall tales, which is what I am seeing too often here lately. I don’t want to lie to try to win an argument, I would hope others would feel the same way.
Yeah things have gone downhill. I attribute it to the passion people are feeling right now given the state of the country. Maybe the passion they have is really a good thing but it is frustrating when people go off based on half truths or outright lies.
If you want balance the budget you need to take on entitlements. Everything else is symbolic (not that symbolism isn’t important).
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