Perk from the president

Waterbury Republican-American ^ | December 12, 2007 | Editorial

[Graybeard58]

As he did in 2001, President Bush is giving most federal workers Christmas Eve off with pay so they may have a four-day holiday weekend. It was wrong then, and it's wrong now. Yes, Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon and Carter did the same thing when Christmas Eve fell on Monday, but they did it because federal workers at the time were less handsomely paid. That age, however, is a distant memory.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says the average federal salary is 48 percent higher than the private-sector average. When the value of fringe benefits (pension, health and life insurance, etc.) are added, the disparity grows to 100 percent, says the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Federal workers already get more paid time off than most in the private sector, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Each year, they get 10 paid holidays, plus 13 sick days they may accumulate to infinity. Their vacation-day allotment rises from 13 in their first three years to 20 through Year 15 and to 26 thereafter.

Government workers have much greater job security that folks in the private sector. Their jobs are recession-proof, and their employer has no competition and will never go bankrupt. When the government runs low on cash, it just prints or borrows more money or finds ways to "enhance revenues."

So despite a budget deficit of more than $100 billion, a national debt of $10 trillion and unfunded entitlement liabilities of $90 trillion, the president spends gobs of other people's money to give his people a day off with pay and makes private employers who can't afford to follow suit look like Scrooges.

If federal employees want Christmas Eve to be a paid holiday, let them negotiate it into their contracts. Otherwise, make them use a vacation day, just like America's working stiffs.

[thackney]

Giving stuff to one another is in no way similar to the wise men giving gifts to Christ.

Neither is putting a cross on my wall similar to the pain Christ suffered for my sins. But I do both to remember Christ.

[stuartcr]

You can’t take vacations because of FR?

[Poundstone]

Amen, BamaDi. Proud to have you as a fellow Fed.

The anti-federal employees here don’t know squat.

[BamaDi]

thanks to you and some of the others for the kind words....sometimes I feel as I’m ranked right up there (or down there - whatever) with Dims.....I know personally that most Federal employees are Republicans - the worse 8 years of my Federal employment was the Clintoon administration (of course Jimmah wasn’t too far behind though I was in Germany during that disaster and didn’t feel it as bad....)