Posted on 11/29/2010 7:57:24 AM PST by VRWCTexan
markknoller NBC Tweet
WH announces 2-year pay freeze for all civilian federal employees – including Department of Defense – but NOT military personnel
(Excerpt) Read more at twitter.com ...
Sprite518: “LMAO! Are you smoking crack?”
No, but I dare say I know a bit about federal employment. I’m in favor of the pay freeze, but I think there’s a lot more jealousy driving this anger than a real search for the best way to cut government while retaining quality employees. First off, the article is about FEDERAL employees, not state. Secondly, there are good and bad workers in both the private and government sectors. Many federal employees bring highly specialized knowledge and advanced degrees to the job. Some federal career fields, like engineering, are paid less on average than the private sector. Finally, the federal government does indeed have some enumerated powers. When it comes to those jobs, do you want slugs or do you want talent? You decry lazy civil servants, but do you not know that there are civil servants in the DoD who are deploying right alongside the active force? Do you not understand there are highly trained people who are in jobs that directly and indirectly support national defense and other enumerated powers?
How about firing about two thirds of the worthless federal gub mint workforce?
FREEZE?
There should be a cutback
To 1970’s levels.
In honor of Jimmy Carter, who the present Administration seems to honor and emulate.
That right, their pay has steadily climbed at an extremely fast pace for years now, while privately employed persons pay has essentially seen no increase at all.
And now all of a sudden they decide to freeze federal employees pay...it IS all a rouse and the rouse will work for the Obambitrons.
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For feds, more get 6-figure salaries
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-12-10-federal-pay-salaries_N.htm
Federal Employees Pay Raises and Getting Fat Off the People
By Shakur Pfist
http://ezinearticles.com/?Federal-Employees-Pay-Raises-and-Getting-Fat-Off-the-People&id=4762376
How Congress sets its own pay
By Frances Symes
http://www.congress.org/news/2010/08/23/how_congress_sets_its_own_pay
Senate Salaries since 1789
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/senate_salaries.htm
Six million private sector jobs gone as pay raises get offered to public workers
http://www.examiner.com/finance-examiner-in-national/six-million-private-sector-jobs-gone-as-pay-raises-get-offered-to-public-workers
I've worked with (between) both and the relative values are infinitesimal.
If for no other reason than higher education has become a necessary ticket punch in private industry.
As for technical skills (mechanics, engineers, mail room attendants, etc.) there is no legitimate comparison.
Only edge the feds have is in the force created by government via purse strings and regulations we don't get to vote on or protest very loudly.
(GI skill levels are pretty high, due largely to their being more practical and nonunion. Only problem there is the young age & short tours of many of them.)
(One more surprise; I'd far prefer working alongside a high school grad with a good work ethic and pertinent skills than a PHD with his or her diploma on the wall where everyone has to look at it before raising an issue...those degrees are usually unrelated to performance. PS - I hold a Master's)
If you wanna call that 'jealousy' go right ahead.
It's a big government. Some of the folks are good. Some are bad. No matter where we start to look for opportunities to cut, SOMEONE will be outraged at the unfairness of it all.
I will be happy with any cut, any amount, any program. I strongly support Defense, but I don't think i can hope to get anywhere at all if I maintain a private sacred cow and say "You can't cut this."
Everything needs to be on the table. Folks with great skills can leave the government and earn more in the private sector any time they want. And if that statement isn't true, then maybe they need to be glad with what they have.
>> If you wanna call that ‘jealousy’ go right ahead.
If you and I weren’t *paying* for government employees’ free ride, it might indeed be chalked up to jealousy.
But, sadly, we (and our children, and our children’s children, and so forth) ARE paying for it. From our own dwindling pocketbooks.
This is simply unsustainable. Government produces nothing of benefit, and absorbs far too much of the nation’s productivity.
Just in time for the New Congress?
silverleaf: “obama and the radical liberals are the enemy, folks, not our fellow CITIZENS who work in the federal civil service”
Thank you, silverleaf. There are people who are jealous or angry or both at ALL federal employees. There were 2,748,978 civilian federal employees in the United States as of January 2009. The angry/jealous ones lump nearly 3 million people in very diverse jobs into one group and declare they ALL make too much. Note that the studies report average pay and benefits.
Some federal jobs are underpaid. Many are overpaid. Many jobs, like aircraft refurbishment for example, require highly specialized knowledge. You can’t just hire someone out of Mc Donalds to do some of these jobs. You also have federal employees serving all over the world in areas that are dangerous, very expensive, or both.
It’s so easy (and brainless) to cry for across the board cuts. Sure, who cares if talented employees leave key jobs (yeah, there are key jobs in federal service) to go to the private sector. Rather than force our politicians to prioritize and eliminate unconstitutional federal programs, it’s so much easier to blame federal employees who are simply trying to feed their families and, for the most part, serve their country.
I think people operate with a little knowledge and a lot of ignorance when it comes to what GS 12’s - 13’s actually do. (GS 14 is the bottom level of management.)
Good luck finding engineers, lawyers, doctors, computer engineers, and other highly skilled, highly educated folks willing to stay. What will most likely happen is that those close to retirement will stay just long enough to retire and come back as contractors for the same pay, those not vested will leave, those vested will stay because they are more or less trapped, and any positions opened will be filled by younger people just out of college who weren’t sharp enough to be hired by a Fortune 500 company.
GS 1 - 9 is largely clerical. There are more than enough people to fill those jobs, especially since those levels tend to not require any type or degree or skill. The problem comes in the bleeding of experience, knowledge, and talent in that middle range where the work gets done.
And no, I don’t call it jealousy, it’s just a lack of knowledge I think.
I’m very familiar with it trust me. Yes I’m quite aware that there are some good apples. Nevertheless, most (meaning over 50%) civil federal employees cost more than they are worth.
Civil federal employees have a terrible productivity level, and at the same time are way over paid. The tax payers are getting ripped off. Moreover, in order for them to function you have to take money from the private sector. You know the sector that creates the wealth in our country? Finally, I would take a private sector employee over a government any day of the week. Yes I have worked both sides of the fence. The main problem with government, besides the fact that they do not produce wealth and are productive, is that there is no accountability.
Yes, you are paying for gov’t employees. But where do you think they get a ‘free ride.” Think about what services are provided by the federal work force - air traffic controllers, civil engineers, lawyers. The cheap may come out expensive in too many fields.
Don’t lump federal retirement in with state governments, because they aren’t the same. I don’t know why people are so convinced federal retirement is a gravy train, because FERS is a 401K type retirement program. In other words, federal employees have to save their own money for a decent pension. It’s not a free ride.
So the alternative is to do what - leave everything as it is? Do a case by case investigation to see who's worth the money & who isn't, what jobs are worth keeping and which aren't?
What is the alternative? This brainless angry overtaxed serf can't think of one.
True words indeed....and then we will complain that those there can't do a job, won't do a job, and aren't worth what they are paid. So to attract the top talent, the salaries and benefits will have to go up and oh wait.....no that wasn't what we wanted at all was it?
Instead of cutting salaries, Congress should be cutting numbers and then raising salaries to get the best and the brightest - and those that are hard workers. Not someone who took a government job because no one else would hire them.
The old CRCS is pretty sweet though, however, not many of those guys left. Oh, except Congress of course! No FERS for them!
Nervous Tick: “Government produces nothing of benefit, and absorbs far too much of the nation’s productivity.”
The first part is simply not true. Government has enumerated powers. Do you consider national defense “nothing of benefit?” What you are writing is a very simplistic view of government.
If what you wrote is true, anarchy would best. Our government is too large, but government is a necessity. A properly sized government is an economic MULTIPLIER. It creates a stable society where wealth creation is protected and encouraged. The difficult truth for some to accept: a lack of necessary government can be just as bad as too much government.
The trick is to find the right amount, and many people have studied just that. Personally, I think the founders had a pretty good plan. Instead of raging against federal employees who are perceived as being lazy and getting a free ride, maybe people should be asking which programs should be eliminated instead?
When it comes to enumerated powers, shouldn’t we want an efficient government staffed by talented employees? No. The politicians are taking the easy way out like always. No unconstitutional programs are eliminated. No hard choices are made. Yet, we still have trillions for unions, welfare moms, and illegal aliens.
Yes, there are exceptions to the rule that government employees are a drag on our free economy. Just like there are exceptions to the rule that private sector employees are a boost to it.
But a relative handful of exceptions doesn’t disprove the point that we have far too many government employees and their productivity versus their value to society is low. That’s a free ride, whether or not you care to admit it.
>> ...lawyers
ROFL! That’s an interesting comment. Should I worry that hiring fewer inexpensive lawyers for EPA, OSHA, Dept of Education, civil rights enforcement, etc. will harm me or my economy? Hope you won’t mind if I don’t lose sleep.
Enlighten me then... I'm under the impression a federal pension is paid as long as the retired pensioner or their spouse is alive. Which will probably amount to far more than they contributed.
Unlike mine, which amounts to my contribution, my employers match, and any capital gain. Is that incorrect?
If it is I'll stand corrected.
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