A National Embarrassment
Posted on 03/10/2011 8:12:57 PM PST by Libloather
GOP targets salaries, 'offensive' bonuses of federal workers
By Erik Wasson - 03/09/11 08:50 PM ET
Cost-cutting House Republicans on Wednesday made it clear that they are eyeing the salaries of federal workers.
And they don’t like what they see.
During a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing, panel Chairman Dennis Ross (R-Fla.) noted that “federal employees on average earned $101,628 in total compensation in 2010, nearly four times more than the average private-sector worker.”
He argued President Obama’s two-year pay freeze for federal workers, enacted in December, “wasn’t really a freeze” because it did not include all increases. He also decried the fact that Obama’s 2012 budget calls for hiring 15,000 more federal workers.
Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry shot back that studies showing federal workers earn more than private-sector workers are misleading, and said federal workers should not be denigrated.
The contentious hearing comes as Republican governors in various states, most notably Wisconsin, are seeking to make major cuts in government salaries and benefits.
Ross said there is less pressure on federal workers than state workers in places like Wisconsin because the federal government isn’t forced by law to balance its budget, like states are.
Recent polls show Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) slipping in the polls amid the budget stalemate. But House Republicans say the issue of federal workers' salaries is a winning issue for them because of the nation’s anti-Washington mood and rejection of legislation that expands the reach of government.
Last summer, then-Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) railed against the salaries of federal workers, calling for major reforms.
After the 2010 election, Obama announced the two-year freeze for federal workers, infuriating union officials and leading GOP officials to crow that the president endorsed their idea.
Democrats have mocked the House Speaker for what they claim is his cavalier attitude toward federal workers losing their jobs. Boehner last month responded “so be it” when asked about the possibility of government employees becoming unemployed as a result of the GOP’s budget cuts. He later clarified his remark.
Both sides on Wednesday accused each other of using misleading information.
By government estimates, Berry said, federal workers make about 20 percent less than their private-sector counterparts in a straight job-to-job comparison and when additional factors, including job danger, are factored in.
Berry noted that attorneys start at a salary of $90,000, compared to $145,000 for first-year law firm associates, while federal cooks tend to make more because most work in prisons under “dangerous” conditions.
He said directly comparing federal to private-worker pay generally is not fair, because private-sector salary averages are driven down by the inclusion of lower-skilled workers’ wages, like retail clerks and waiters — positions absent in the federal workforce.
“We must reject misleading comparisons that perpetuate the myth that federal employees are overcompensated,” he said.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) criticized Berry over the fact that 63 percent of workers last year got some kind of performance award.
Berry said these payments for good work averaged less than $1,000.
“These are not the Wall Street bonuses we have heard about,” he said.
Chaffetz shouted back that it is “offensive to many people” that the government would hand out so many bonuses during a rough economy.
Berry acknowledged that the six-decade-old federal pay system is not perfect and is indeed worthy of scrutiny — as long as federal workers are not being unfairly portrayed.
Republicans have been calling for a five-year pay freeze for federal workers, combined with a hiring freeze.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the full Oversight and Government Reform Committee, asked Berry if he would work with Congress to make the Obama pay freeze a “real” pay freeze that also includes step increases within pay grades.
Berry said he would not support that effort because canceling step increases would cause too many federal workers to leave their government jobs for the private sector.
The Obama pay freeze applies to cost-of-living adjustments but does not apply to automatic step increases.
Ross said after the hearing that the GOP would look to correct the overpay situation in two ways: first by freezing step increases within pay grades for federal workers, and then by overhauling the entire pay system.
The first step could come within weeks, but Ross would not say how Republicans would try to move that bill, which would save $1 billion over a fiscal year. The second step, Ross said, would likely enjoy broader bipartisan support, and would involve giving managers more flexibility to award salary increases and to fire bad employees, as well as changing how the government compares federal wages to the private sector.
Can they lower the wages paid to U.S. Congressmen, the U.S. President...and the Vice President. Seems that this would show the world they are serious about cutting back on spending.
Why should a federal non-military worker get a bonus?
They have structured salaries and progressive pay scales that civilians dont......
Keep the pressure on and just ignore the self-serving idiots out on the lawn.
Kipling had it:
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
That is what we need from our leigslators
*The first step could come within weeks, but Ross would not say how Republicans would try to move that bill, which would save $1 billion over a fiscal year.*
Wow, a whole billion. That’ll keep Social Security going for another five minutes.
Yawn.
1) Eliminate all government agencies established after 1960
2) Cut remaining salaries by 30% across the board.
.
There is something apples to oranges about comparing the average Federal employee to the average private sector employee. Sure the government has its janitors, low-level maintenance workers, and phone-answering drones just like the private sector, but there aren’t really that many Federal fry-cooks, waiters, pizza deliverymen, gardeners, car-wash attendants, cashiers, lettuce-pickers,. . . Well, you get the idea.
What is the differential for comparable work? I know us public-sector research-university professors get a lot less on average than private-(albeit non-profit) sector research-university professors in the same area of specialization. Now the Feds don’t employ any of us, but it hardly follows that the average Federal employee getting less than the average private sector employee is a cause for scandal even among tight-fisted fiscal conservatives. It may simply be that the Federal government has a greater percentage of its workforce in skilled positions that command higher wages in the market than does the private sector. It could even be paying them slightly less than folks who do the same job in the private sector by attracting them with the blandishment of job-stability and the ego-boost of “serving one’s country”, and still, entirely on the basis of a different mix of jobs, have a higher average wage than the private sector pays.
Nor would it follow that something good were happening if the average Federal salary came down to the average private-sector salary. That could be accomplished by hiring lots of new Federal workers into pointless, but low-paying make-work jobs.
The real question is the one analogous to Lady Thatcher’s question in the early days of her Prime Ministership, “What are we doing with 560,000 that we can’t do with 500,000?”
LOL! The Feds kill me.
We should use the term “obscene.”
That is the term that the leftistaholes use when they talk about the excessive size of SUVs and the excessive salaries of those who work in the private sectors.
Here’s how to use their language against them:
Union pay is obscene.
Union benefits are obscene.
Unions exploit the taxpayer.
The unions are imperialist. They are no different from those imperialist countries that go into someone else’s domain and make it a colony of theirs.
MISH of the global economic trend analysis has the best yet: unions are a form of slavery.
I work for the Dept of the Army as a nurse. My wage is compatable to the local community. The problem we had was that we could not keep nurses because our wages were much lower. When locality pay was introduced it leveled the playing field and made us competative.
My first job was with the VA. After almost one year I had to quit because we could not keep up with normal day to day responsibilities. The pay was that bad. (1990-1991) I worked in the private sector for about 14yrs before I gave DA another try (2004).
It’s been about 15yrs that nursing has had compatable pay.
We’re not all over paid.
Berry said he would not support that effort because canceling step increases would cause too many federal workers to leave their government jobs for the private sector.
THIS IS ASTOUNDING, that is exactly what would happen and they would then have to compete head to head with the real workforce, not the phony baloney workforce they are.
As a CPA I see gross examples of government incompetence on a daily basis. The best example I know of is go to your local post office and see how long you have to wait.
I use the automated system whenever possible however they will not put a second one in because there is not enough demand. WELL they need to be there and see lines almost as long as the lines inside with the clerks.
It will not get better until they have to compete on a level field with other businesses. Most of what the government does could be privatized and some even off shored and we would be a whole lot better off.
It is fine for the private sector do off shore so why should not the government in areas where they can. If they truly want a global economy that is one of the steps. Then they will find out what they are worth.
I don’t think that it is so much that they get overpaid, as that there’s too many of them getting paid. Yes, some jobs get paid too much (Congresscritters) but then why are we the taxpayers paying for the EPA/ATF people? Why are we covering the thousands of staffers Congress has? The ridiculously expensive cups Pelosi likes? (Just buy each Congressman ONE Starbucks reusable mug per year.)
The main ones that get overpaid are those in the public sector unions :/
Hi, in this particular case I was making fun of the official’s comments that if step increases were eliminated too many workers would leave for the private sector. I seriously doubt that would happen right now.
I have no problem with what Federal employees make. Though I was Army enlisted for 15 years and I’m almost certain their pitiful salaries are used to drag down the Fed average to make it look more equitable than it actually is.
What I have a problem with is the way the Feds just carry-on as if the last three years were not a problem. Bonuses, step increases, annual wage increase, etc., etc., hell they even have more employees now than in 2007!!!
I guess there are those of us that wonder when the Fed belt tightening will start? When will the Feds start to act like there is a recession going on? When will the Feds start to share the burden the private sector has felt for several years already?
Thats funny, Republican council members are voting for excessive city employee salaries continually. They just voted a $400,000 a year salary for a city manager salary in California. Lets not give government more credit than it deserves, gop or dems
The pensions have to go. If 401Ks are good enough for US, they are good enough for THEM, INCLUDING the president and congress. I am sickened knowing that Zero will be getting a couple hundred thousand a year for the rest of his life, plus SS coverage.
Republicans have been calling for a five-year pay freeze for federal workers, combined with a hiring freeze.
Ok. I can see the five year pay freeze but hiring freeze too? With boomers retiring in droves this will not be good. It is bad enough to have to wait hours and hours at the DMV. Now I guess they can charge for beds for overnight stays. I also would not mind a hiring freeze as long as this did not include the Department of Defense. How is Sarah going to hire a staff as President if their is a federal government freeze for five years? She will NOT be able to hire a single secretary, driver, anything at all especially when all the Obama folks leave. I don’t think people are seriously looking at the problems that will come of this.
2) Cut remaining salaries by 30% across the board.
Even the GS-5 who makes 28,000 a year? Everyone thinks that Federal workers make a ton but 28,000 is not that much especially after taxes.
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