Posted on 02/27/2010 5:30:40 AM PST by bestintxas
All this week CNN has been taking a look at "Broken Government" and in some cases the cable channel deviated from the mainstream media norm by providing a critical view of government.
That was the case on Feb. 23 when Wolf Blitzer and Lisa Sylvester scrutinized lavish pension-plan and retirement-packages for government officials during "The Situation Room."
"Many Americans will spend half a lifetime or more working for the same company only to find little or no safety-net when that job ends," Blitzer said to begin the report. "Others, especially those on Capitol Hill don't have that problem."
"This is certainly nice work if you can get it," reporter Lisa Sylvester noted, alluding to the troubling disparity. "Lawmakers on Capitol Hill get automatic pay-raises and they never have to worry about their retirement, but that's not the case for many middle-class Americans."
How to get by after retirement is a question that weighs on many citizens. CNN found a former auto parts worker who had his pension cut 30 percent by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation after his company Delphi went bankrupt and his pension was taken over by the government.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Mine is a rockin chair and a fishin pole. I make more than Senile Security in 2 days. I would rather have tax cuts.
Guess now that Lou Dobbs is gone, they’ve picked Cafferty to speak for the “Independents”. As I watched him interview some Independents about a Primary, it came to me they’re trying to peel off the Indies from the Republican tickets. If they can successfully divorce the two, the field is wide open for the Dims (a la Perot/Bush & Clinton race).
The Communist New Network, pointing out dat da bes place ta work be da gub-mint. (Unless you be a fat cat at CNN).
Just doing their publik service by providing long-range-financial-planning to da publik.
Congressmen and state legislators shouldn’t receive pensions, benefits or a salary at all. A per-diem for transportation and lodging during their *limited* sessions should suffice as a gratuity for their public service. The idea of perpetual sessions that only end so a new session can start is not what we should be doing.
For government employees, its more of a problem of not being honest with the taxpayers as to the cost of compensating employees. Its easy enough for an actuary to figure out how much the real compensation is for an employee, adding up their salary, benefits as well as deferred compensation. Politicians have just passed on these costs for services that were performed way back when to their successors without funding them.
If the politicians were forced to actually fund ALL of the costs of the public employees when the work is done, you’d see a big cut in the number of employees, amount of compensation or both. But the protocol of passing it on makes its too easy to “be nice” to the civil service unions.
I can’t believe that people complain about this. Isn’t everyone eligible to work for the government? If people find the bennies attractive, why don’t they work work for the government? There must be a reason.....
“Isn’t everyone eligible to work for the government? If people find the bennies attractive, why don’t they work work for the government? There must be a reason.....”
Maybe it’s the same reason why most people do not steal from banks.
After all, the bennies are attractive, and everyone is eligible to do it, aren’t they?
In the federal government, the employees feel no paih.
I have read several articles recently that the average federal government employee makes $71k and the average private sector employee $41k.
True but that is kinda a strange comparison.
“”Wanna bet the DC solution is to reach out and grab (nationalize) the existing privately controlled 401Ks to subsidize the Federal government’s train wreck?””
More and more articles are revealing this as their plan. They think the country is angry now? I’m waiting for the first knucklehead that will have the guts (or is insane enough)to propose it in a bill. George Miller - D-CA and Jim McDermott - D-WA have something in the works but just not sure what it is at this point.
) and I'm not surprised at this. Every one of the permanent employees there at where I work have been there for at least six years, and some have made it past 30! No wonder why if you can get a permanent status employee government job, you're in a very cushy position.
“Dodd will have a starting annual pension of $125,500 when he retires next year. “
Nice work if you can get it. Help to bankrupt America, and get pensioned off at a starting $125,000.00 per year for your efforts. Islamic terrorists should go on strike for better benefits.
When the MSM ventures into honest reporting about the Obama administration, I just assume that it is, in their way of thinking, a little investment in ‘life after Obama’. The MSM is coming to the realization that it cannot control politics with propaganda.
Do you not realize that the military is composed of far more than just the active duty force? The DoD employs quite a few civilians, and some of those are deploying and working side by side with the GIs. Others are back home ensuring the GIs in the field have what they need.
I understand the anger, but you paint with too broad a brush. The federal government has enumerated powers, and I dare say a lot of federal employees are doing work that falls into one of those legitimate functions.
What would you have federal employees do? Should they refuse the government jobs that feed their families because you think they are paid too much?
You should WANT talented people in government, especially conservatives. Good talent costs money. In my opinion, the salaries and benefits aren’t the problem so much as too many people want the government to do too much.
Even in the federal government, at least in the military departments, there are RIFs, reductions in force, for both military and civil servants. Generally civil servants find other positions in either the DoD or some other agency, but the military generally go out the door, because they actually conduct a “select out”, in an attempt to release the lowest performing individuals (by grade of course). AFAIK the civil servants just get their position eliminated, and the occupant is cut loose to find something else, regardless of the competency of that “incumbent”.
I have not read the posts on this thread but in case someone has not pointed it out, the U.S. Government retirement program changed in the mid-80s and the guaranteed pension ended. Now, federal government employees' retirement IS based on earnings in a 401k type program (plus Social Security).
Actually, most people tend not to work for the government because the initial government pay is not so great in the beginning.
And people tend to think only in the short term.
Looking out over 40-odd years, you’d see a nice, comfortable retirement off of a government job. But most people, in their youth, think that they’ll make a name for themselves and do well. They don’t see the writing on the wall until it’s too late to change.
Or they studied hisotry and economics and found that the pension system is unsustainable for economic and geopolitical reasons.
I was a civil servant for 4 years in the dept of commerce.
I am not against civil serevants for sure. What I am against is the expansion of the federal bureaucracy and its unaccountability to American citizens.
There is simply no way for a bureacracy that is in DC to be held accountable by citizens. It is just too big and too far away. That makes me want to have as many as the services required to be performed by the govt as local as possible, either states or even lower. Take education as an example. There is no reason why a bureaucracy in DC mandates things for our kids when a local school board is the one that should make the decisions. I can sure get after a local school board if I feel my money is not being well spent by them or my kids are not being educated.
Another unaccountability is what another poster mentioned: Why should federal employees make more on average than the normal private individual? I expect a nuclear scientist responsible for our nuclear arsenal should be paid more than a painter, but should the average federal employee be paid more than the average person who supports him?
I also worked for a large company in which I was well paid. When we had a downturn, my salary was reduced. Does the civil service do this? When it got really bad, my company laid me off. Does this typically happen to federal employees? I see no reason why we do not have the fiscal health of our economy in mind when we have to make decisions on how big our bureacracy needs to be. Programs do not go away in the federal govt.
As far as I am concerned, we need a serious reduction in the size of the federal govt, and a wholesale zer0-based budgeting process like the private sector must do.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.