Posted on 02/09/2018 7:43:30 PM PST by ducttape45
I am writing this partially because I really want to know where the Freeper community stands on a whole on the issue of government workers and partially because of my disgust for certain members of the Freeper community.
There is a member on a another post who I won't mention (but who I'm sure will make his/her presence known here) who thinks that just because I work for the federal government that I should be forced from my job and unto the streets begging for money. This person apparently has a very low opinion of anyone who works for the US government. Over the past several years I've encountered many more like this person.
Yes, I work for Uncle Sam, but I am also a military veteran of 10 years (United States Air Force), and I've been in the employ of the US Government at a local military base supporting first a civil engineering squadron and now an air refueling squadron.
I do not make a whole of lot money. I am a GS-05 and I barely scrape in $24,000 a year. I'm paying on bills that I racked up helping to put my kids through college. I do not regret ever doing that because they are all very successful now in their adult lives, yet, as a single father I barely have two nickels to rub together most of the time. So to hear Freepers wish me "out on the streets or working at McDonalds and Walmart" just because they hate the government so much, I feel like I'm being lumped in with the crooks on Capital Hill. The vitriol that has been spewed at me by members of the Free Republic community has been nothing less than totally disgusting, yet at the same time I give credit to the many who have been very supportive.
Now don't get me wrong, yes, I know there ARE crooks on Capital Hill. I will be the first person to agree with you. I've seen folks here locally take advantage of the system. They have two retirements going and are still working part time racking in the dough. Yes, it's wrong, and I'll be the first person to stand up and say so. That's also part of the reason why I'm still a GS-05 because many years ago I dared to stand up to the system and have been kept from promoting ever since. I see the cronyism and nepotism that takes places on a government installation and it sickens me to the core of my being. Yet, I'm being lumped in with them. I see the wasteful spending going on, yet I'm being lumped in with them. I see people working in positions they have no business working in, while people (like myself) are being kept from being in positions they are more than qualified for because we don't suck up to higher management, yet I'm being lumped in with them. I see the evil in people like Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Obama and his boyfriend Michael, yet I'm being lumped in with them when I'm nothing like them nor will I never be!
So it's reckoning time, members of Free Republic. Do you honestly feel that every single person who works for the federal government is evil? Is this "guilt by association?" Are folks like myself to be branded as "less than human" because we work in an office or in a capacity that many of you find reprehensible? If so, and if people like me are not welcome here, then I'll leave Free Republic. There are many great people here, to be sure, and if I am forced to leave because of the bad apples then I will be the less for it, but I will not tolerate the hateful attitudes and insults of those bad applies any longer if those feelings are representative of Free Republic on a whole.
It's time to make your positions known. Are you anti-government to the point where you could care less for the good people who work within government, or do you have the capacity to realize not everyone who works for the US Government is out to scam and steal from the tax payer and is just trying to make an honest living?
Who gives a ### what anything else thinks but you?
Hit back hard if you feel you need to.
I’m always doing it as a blue stater in NY when I see comments i dont like.
If you’re useful, then you’re in the minority of fed workers that are and would be kept on board.
A little bit whiny for an ex military guy, imho.
But thanks for your service.
Military personnel are government workers, of sorts... I like them, even the old timers.
Nothing wrong with government workers, some of them are good, some of them are not so good.
They’re people.
It’s airforce, you’re supposed to whine.
While I dislike most government workers, it’s because, 80% are there to do as little as possible and get as much as they can. The other 20% actually do their jobs. Congrats on being in the 20%.
You are a GS five and you’re scraping by at $24,000?
Bull cheese. I looked at the pay scale. Even a step one is at 28,495. Hell is that even minimum-wage?
Some are necessary, military, law enforcement, treasury. But almost everything else could be done on a more local level.
And, while many are dedicated, there are too many who couldn’t possibly hold any job in the public sector who are GS-12 step something. That’s a really nice living, and I can completely see how there’s resentment to that.
So, like everything else, vast, sweeping statements condemning or praising entire groups of people will most assuredly always be wrong.
“...because, 80% are there to do as little as possible and get as much as they can. The other 20% actually do their jobs”
Just like a big box home improvement store. The Walmart in my town, them folks hump in there. Non stop. It’s pretty impressive actually.
Government needs workers also. It is up to congress to determine the depth and breadth of government workers task (according to the constitution).
I’m a 24-year Navy vet and now have almost 30 years in the private sector. Have worked with many fine Federal civilian employees, and I suspect you’re one of them. My heartburn is that there are way too many civilians (huge govt.), they are illegally unionized, and it’s difficult to get rid of bad apples in such a seniority-based system. If it were a non-union, merit-based system, I’d bet you’d be running the show at your base. Stay with FR, despite the few jerks.
Know how you feel, my husband is a retired GM employee. As long as a person is of high integrity of does not matter the employment.
I guess you mean congrats to the guy who wrote this thread :)
I agree. But i think it’s more like 10 percent that are needed.
That’s terrible.
And since I felt food was more important than serving our country after 9/11, I can’t talk about military folk.
I went to sign up in NYC after 9/11
5 11, 240 Too heavy
Tried but food was my master.
But geez, take a guy who’s 240 but strong and get him in shape, no?
i dont know
I have family and friends that work for state government. Not the federal government, but still a branch on the same topic tree.
They, like you, are good people. They also, unlike me, enjoy benefits (days off for holidays, sick days, stubbed toe days, obscure holiday holidays, yadda yadda), paid-for health-care and the promise of a decent pension that I can but dream about.
I’ve been told I “should go work for the state”, but I try (and often fail) to explain that I, the self-employed guy, should be able to make it on my own and not have the taxpayers (me again) funding a plush lifestyle and retirement. State and federal workers, while necessary in many cases, are an expense. I, the self-employed guy, produce the income and they are a draw on that income.
I don’t hate them and I don’t hate you. I hate a government that has created a class of elites that enjoy privileges and security that the private sector, the folks who are the backbone of the economy, will never see. We need government, but a government that is limited to necessaries, not a congressman’s dopey cousin who needs a job and gets a make-work position in some cavernous federal bureaucracy.
It has just gotten out of hand. That abomination of a budget is the latest example. We cannot pay for all of this. Don’t even get me started on social unsecurity. I am forced to pay nicely into that fund and likely will never see a penny back, and that really pisses me off. I could do better with that money on my own.
I’m a civilian federal government worker. Most but not all of the people I work with are leftists, and I don’t work for the EPA or CFPB. It’s not that too many people are outspoken about it but just picking up cues.
My attitude is leaving my job won’t shrink the size of government. It’ll just get filled by someone else, perhaps another leftist.
If I knew that voting for any particular Republican would mean the end of my job, I’d still vote for him or her. The county is more important than policies that would personally benefit me to the detriment of most other Americans. That said, I probably won’t have much to worry about since we control both formally political branches and can’t even defund Planned Auschwitzhood.
Well said.
I don’t hate government workers. They are necessary.
I simply think there are far, far too many of them.
And government unions are an abomination.
Maybe he means the take home pay after taxes, etc.
I don’t think gov workers should be unionized.
I think bad gov employees should be easily fired.
I think the number of gov employees should be downsized, by attrition mostly.
I have no problem with hard-working gov employees filling a useful position.
Freep on gov worker!
I have government workers in my family and as a contractor had thousands of interchanges with local code officials to Corp of Engineers staff and management people.
There is good and bad in every field and I found few in these fields outside of California that were overpaid.
The pension options are and always have been somewhat too fulsome. It is perhaps a trade off for the working conditions and regulations.
I have served on public boards, appeals boards, and Master Plan Commissions, so as an unpaid “government worker” I guess I qualify.
The big difference is in the private sector, an asshole is usually an asshole in his own company, rather self-limiting. In a government organization, an asshole can exist that way almost forever with no corrective action and thereby they become legendary.
Get a real job.
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