Posted on 03/02/2010 6:49:56 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Imagine a company that dominates its field. It's been No. 1 in its industry as long as anyone can remember. But lately it's fallen on hard times. Revenue has dropped dramatically. The only thing keeping it afloat is record borrowing based on its stellar credit rating, earned many years ago. Meanwhile, independent analysts have shown that workers at this company earn higher than average wages. Moreover, the workers have skills that are not easily transferable.
If this were an airline or an automaker, the solution would be a no-brainer: It would be time for a big pay cut. If the company didn't cut pay, or increased it, creditors and investors would question the seriousness of management.
But this is exactly what President Obama did in his most recent budget--request a wage increase of 2% for civilian federal workers in 2010. It's no wonder some are questioning the financial stability of the U.S. So why don't we do something serious. How about an outright pay cut of 10% for all civilian federal workers?
Just to be clear, we're not just picking on President Obama here. The pay increase in his budget would actually be the smallest in 20 years. But total compensation per federal worker--cash earnings plus fringe benefits--now averages twice that of the private sector. So cutting cash earnings by 10% across the board seems not only reasonable, but justified.
Truth be told, it would not save a great deal of money, at least not up front. The payroll (wages and salaries) for civilian federal workers is about $150 billion per year, so a 10% cut would only create $15 billion in outlay savings.
Nonetheless, a one-time pay cut of 10% permanently shifts future wages onto a lower path.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Its more the outrageous pension and other post retirement benefits packages than salaries, IMO. Even though for some titles salary packages are too high also.
Very rare to be able to retire in the private sector with a guaranteed pension. Some people can vest in as few as 20 years (cops mainly) or 25 years (teachers) and then get paid pensions for life, usually with COLAs too.
Sweet deal. Work 20 or 25 years, and then get paid for another 30 or more, almost all on the taxpayer’s dime.
And that doesn’t even include the post retirment medical benefits. We are creating many public sector millionaires, because that is what their fat retirement packages are worth.
Did you learn the tactic of calling a person who says something you disagree with a hater from Alinsky?
Thanks for the information, please continue with additional information on benefits, vacation days, etc. so that we can have the true picture of government employee pay/benefits. I think most people think of the higher officials, most which are appointed with their higher pay.
Good point knucklehead.
Did they crack down on Ronald Reagan when he collected a Califronia State Government Pension and a Federal Govt Pension, plus the Screen Actor's Guild pension, and Social Security?
Envy directed toward CEO's or Govt pee-on workers, is still envy.
And cut the lavish benefits, too. Make their cars taxable. End the government pension and put them on social security. Allow them to participate in a supplemental 401k if they wish. No early retirement. End “multiple pensions;” all time in Federal employment goes into social security and that’s it. Have them enroll in HSA’s for health care.
An example: As pro tem judge back in the late 1980s I heard a divorce case involving a former federal employee. He had served in the US Army and Reserves 10 years, then served in the Navy Reserves 15 years, while working at Naval Avionics as a civilian employee, from which he retired with full pension at age 55. He was getting four pension checks a month, totaling over $5000,00, plus full medical care. What was his job at Naval Avionics?
He was a janitor.
With the "Fair Tax" (tax on purchases), that would not matter - "Under the table" money might then be a "spouse dodge", but not a "tax dodge".
I’m with you. I have no idea what these folks are talking about. I guess I understand the anger, but most of the posters have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Federal pay in some jobs may be better than civilian pay, but in other jobs it’s less. The retirement is not what most people think. TSP is essentially a 401K type, employee funded retirement program with a % of employer matching contributions. The biggest benefit of government work, in my opinion, is job security—not pay and other forms of compensation.
As I posted on other threads, we WANT quality people in government jobs. The problem is not that quality people are being overpaid so much that we ask government to do too many things. It takes a lot of people to run a bureaucracy as big as the federal government. Eliminate programs and return federal employees to the civilian sector. Keep those in constitutionally enumerated jobs and pay them what they deserve.
Across-the-board cuts are asinine. That’s the easy way...instead of actually having to make choices, just punish everyone regardless of what they do, the amount of expertise they bring, and the quality of their work. Across-the-board pay cuts don’t actually eliminate anything other than further encouraging the best employees to leave government service!
But these clowns who walk into 120 year old companies and play the back-scratching game with the board for tens of millions of dollars piss me off to no end.
And the bailouts? I could go on all day about that.
Sorry you didn't make the ZING point you thought you were.
I seem to remember that NObama gave ALL Federal workers a cost of living wage increase last year, then shortly thereafter, announced that all Social Security was being frozen thru 2010 + 2011 because there was “NO INCREASE in the cost of living!!!
The authors are making the same mistake we have made for 70 years! A 10% pay cut is a feel good action trying to fix a 40% problem. The only solution is to close completely the numerous failed departments and fire all their useless employees. No other path will solve the problem. Besides being unconstitutional, unnecessary and totally ineffective I can not think of another thing to say about the likes of the Department of Energy, Education, HUD, etc.
Reduce non-military workforce by 30% across the board.
CUT pay 30% for remaining staffers.
NO early retirement options offered.
GARNISH all pay to collect past-due taxes, child support, student loans and immigrant sponsorship liabilities.
After completing that her first day in office, President Palin continued reducing the size of government by . . .
But compared to the private sector, the government is out of control.
Post 10
I have no idea about the specifics of your example but, from what I know about federal retirement, this sounds like BS, so it probably is.
The article states “truth be told, it would not save a great deal of money” so this would be just a symbolic action. The writer could do a little investigation to determine waste and abuse and propose actions to eliminate that.
Federal salaries, as well as colas, are set by wage surveys and are consistent with comparable positions in the area. There are dedicated federal workers, in essential positions, that earn every penny they are paid, there are others with ill defined duties and little accountability that have little true purpose. Anyone addressing this issue should know the difference.
Should have been directed to SeekAndFind, post 25.
I’ll go so far as to say there are plenty of hard working, federal workers in non-essential positions. By non-essential, I mean in jobs that are not in support of constitutionally enumerated federal powers. The problem isn’t the workers so much as the voters who keep asking the federal government to take on more and more.
I don’t blame anyone for taking a federal job. What do folks want good people to do? Turn down federal work so that only leftists work for government?!? That’s crazy!
Stop asking government to do things that people should be doing for themselves! Start reducing government back to its core tasks.
This will take time, folks. You do this all at once, and we WILL have a depression or worse. You ELIMINATE those programs, over time, that do not support the constitutionally enumerated powers. You return the employees in those programs, over time, to the private work force (and/or transfer the brightest into core jobs).
I know people are fired up to slash government. I’m all for that, too, but it took us 80 years to get here. You try returning millions of federal employees to civilian jobs all at once, and you are going to have an unbelievable mess. Or, you do some asinine across-the-board cut and the best, hardest working folks will bail, leaving the dregs to run the programs (which will still be there albeit not as well funded).
No, I learned it from all the hateful, nasty, and largely incorrect things said about Government employees.
I worked in both public and private sectors, and there are lazy unmotivated useless employees everywhere.
Freepers need to remember that some of their own are government employees before posting some of the venum I’ve seen here. It’s one thing to disagree, or to state that things could be done better, but some of the bitter hate speech I’ve seen here is uncalled for.
I don’t think it’s envy.
I think it is boarding on fraud.
Pension and retirement benefits were entended to help people in their twilight years and a reward for a LIFETIME of service.
Unions have distorted this, and now people are working 15 years or less in many cases and are collecting “retirement” benefits of various sorts for 60+ years for jobs they only worked at for 15. Then they repeat the process at 2 or 3 other government jobs and get that multiple times, THEN they are taking advantage of how the benefits are calculated by working 1000’s of extra hours of overtime in their final year, so that they can actually be paid MORE to retire than they were when they were working FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES.
And go where? Private sector? Where your chance of a pension is nill, where your 401K may or may not be matched on any given quarter, where layoffs are rife and salary freezes or cuts are the norm? All I can say to that is more power to you and welcome to the real world.
“I’ll go so far as to say there are plenty of hard working, federal workers in non-essential positions.”
Didn’t mean to infer that that they weren’t, only that those positions should be reviewed to determine if they should be eliminated or if the function can be done more efficiently and effectively in the private sector.
I think the Post Office, which is very protective of it’s turf, is one that needs to be evaluated. They should allow private competition and draw down as necessary and deliver only in areas where there is no private delivery, even this may be better accomplished by state or county government. This may increase cost per item but would greatly decrease the overall expenditure.
On the other hand I think EMS is an example of government addressing a clear need that was not being effectively done by the private sector. There were some very good ambulance services but not nearly enough to meet the need, many areas had to rely on funeral homes or police “crash wagons” (often with limited medical training) in a medical emergency.
I tend to be more pragmatic than many on this forum, as I believe the purpose of the Constitution was more to protect the people from oppression by the government than to strictly limit the functions of government. Having said that, all functions of government should have a clear purpose, well defined duties and have strict oversight, as government is mostly isolated from market forces.
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