Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Paul Ryan’s budget plan hits federal workers
Washington Post ^ | August 11, 2012 | Joe Davidson, Federal Eye

Posted on 08/11/2012 9:11:03 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife

The spending plan proposed by Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, Mitt Romney’s pick as the Republican vice presidential candidate, has drawn strong opposition from federal employees.

Under the proposed House Republican budget, which Ryan sponsored as chairman of the Budget Committee, savings from the federal workforce would total $368 billion over 10 years. The two-year freeze on basic federal pay rates, scheduled to expire at the end of this year, would be extended through 2015 for a total of five years.

“The Path to Prosperity,” as the budget plan is named, also calls on federal workers to make an unspecified “more equitable contribution to their retirement plans,” which means higher costs to employees. Additionally, the federal workforce would be cut, through attrition over three years, by 10 percent, which equals more than 200,000 positions.

Because the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Justice and Homeland Security have so many employees, the majority of the eliminated positions would come from these agencies, all of which are related to national security.

The budget document says its plans “reflect the growing frustration of workers across the country at the privileged rules enjoyed by government employees.”

Ryan’s budget justifies the employee-related cuts, saying “it is no coincidence that private sector employment continues to grow only sluggishly while the government expands: To pay for the public sector’s growth, Washington must immediately tax the private sector or else borrow and impose taxes later to pay down the debt.”

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2012veep; federal; publicsectorunions; socialism; unions
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 81-100101-120121-140 ... 161-165 next last
To: wayoverthehill
There's still a national market for teachers so some of the excesses in the non-RTW states rub off. Here in Northern Virginia we are butt up against Maryland, and they are not RTW. When they overpay/overbenefit their public school teachers, our guys get raises.

BTW, whether you consider teachers government workers or not they suck the life out of the taxpayers anyway.

101 posted on 08/11/2012 12:35:24 PM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 98 | View Replies]

To: CodeToad
It's done chip to chip so all you need is one of those computer techs to flip the switches off and on and pull modules that fail.

You remember the type ~ used to cost your company $200,000 a year and now you can hire them for $12 an hour ~ on a per-call basis.

TImes are tough, but the machines do get by. They'll be the last ones fired.

102 posted on 08/11/2012 12:38:20 PM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 97 | View Replies]

To: what's up
Probably why the Obamistas decided all those guys ought to go out of business first.

One of the things we'll never get out of a national medical insurance operation is the option of getting our surgery done for less abroad.

Right now you can fly hither and yon, get the same stuff done for less, and come out ahead of the cost curve with some jingle in your pocket. You have the gub'mnt start doing that people will be screaming their heads off about being deported back to Dominica or something.

103 posted on 08/11/2012 12:41:19 PM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 96 | View Replies]

To: freedumb2003

You just don’t know do you. How sad.


104 posted on 08/11/2012 12:42:07 PM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 95 | View Replies]

To: muawiyah
again... all

The problem is NOT the number of federal workers or agencies. These are minor almost insignificant problems compared to the growth in entitlement programs. Fire every federal worker, fire the armed forces, close all government agencies and sell all federal land, we still go off a financial cliff due to entitlements!
Entitlements MUST be reigned in and the mentally to demand them must be decisively repudiated.

105 posted on 08/11/2012 12:44:18 PM PDT by Reily
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: truth_seeker
The total cost for salaries and benefits for every civilian employee or soldier is less than 10% of total federal costs.

So, tell me, what are you people doing with the other 90%?

106 posted on 08/11/2012 12:54:44 PM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 94 | View Replies]

To: muawiyah

You ABR’s are just too much.

Nothing will ever satisfy some of you.

I see it on my facebook page w the paulbots melting down thinking mittens was going to pick ron paul.


107 posted on 08/11/2012 12:57:51 PM PDT by GlockThe Vote (The Obama Adminstration: 2nd wave of attacks on America after 9/11)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Reily
BTW, we have at least three major hydrocarbon sites owned by the federal government that are EACH worth 10 to 20 times the total national debt.

You can sell off just 1/10 of one of those sites and pay the national debt off!

We sell the land at it's true commercial value ~ not book value!

Bet you've been wondering how it is the US government could be so utterly wasteful and the funny little foreign guys keep wanting to buy our treasury bonds. We have the ONLY solvent operation on the planet.

That, BTW, is what Obama wants to put an end to ~ he and the other fascists imagine that the real wealth of America is so incredibly fantastic that it gives us an unfair advantage on everybody else.

To that I can only say in that ancient Russian expression "Toughsky Sheistsky"

108 posted on 08/11/2012 12:59:49 PM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 105 | View Replies]

To: GlockThe Vote

I’m not an ABR. You picked a loser. That makes you a Obot.


109 posted on 08/11/2012 1:01:27 PM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 107 | View Replies]

To: muawiyah

I did not vote for romney in the primary but am voting to oust obama in november.

Those that choose to WASTE their vote on a non-entity like Goode or Johnson claim they want obama gone but are not willing to do a damn thing to help out and hope that the rest of us can muster enough energy and resources to do it.


110 posted on 08/11/2012 1:04:10 PM PDT by GlockThe Vote (The Obama Adminstration: 2nd wave of attacks on America after 9/11)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 109 | View Replies]

To: Rapscallion
Lot of folks out there imagine the "bonuses" are a good deal for the employees.

Actually, since bonuses do not ACCRUE to your base rate, they do not count towards the amount you can deposit into your Thrift Savings Account.

That means the federales do not have to match those deposits with the supplemental 4.5%.

Plus, you have to re-earn the bonus next year just to keep up with your base salary.

The bonus system is a joke that serves to nickel and dime employees out of salary and savings benefits, and harms ultimate retirement funds.

111 posted on 08/11/2012 1:08:46 PM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: GlockThe Vote
Sorry, you gave up all your energy and resources to get rid of Obama when you decided to run Romney.

This guy is a loser.

112 posted on 08/11/2012 1:19:15 PM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 110 | View Replies]

To: Steely Tom

“Those poor, poor federal workers. Poor dears.”


Check out the federal payscale for the DC region. Bear in mind that GS 13/14/15 levels are common in DC.

http://www.opm.gov/oca/12tables/html/dcb.asp


113 posted on 08/11/2012 1:25:00 PM PDT by Starboard
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Common Sense 101

Federal workers = oxymoron in most cases.


A legion of contractors do the real work, the heavy lifting, while the feds attend meetings and play politics. Most taxpayers have no idea that they pay for fed salaries and then pay again for contractors to do their jobs.


114 posted on 08/11/2012 1:30:33 PM PDT by Starboard
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: muawiyah
uhh ... I don't have any problem with what you are saying. Those are estimates and they have in the past been low. However the exponential growth of entitlements if allowed to continue would gobble that up pretty quick.

The desire to remove all risk from life, suffer no consequences from stupid actions (because others pay for it!) and get something for nothing is pretty strong in our society. All the “entitlements & government guarantees” are the natural out growth of that. Unless we change attitudes, entitlements will always grow faster then economic growth can pay for them.

115 posted on 08/11/2012 2:05:56 PM PDT by Reily
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 108 | View Replies]

To: Starboard; Steely Tom
Everybody reads the supposedly definitive reports on relative value of federal government salaries and then gets to the real salary levels in the DC area ~ where most of the federal employees are college graduates with most having additional advanced study ~ and they clean forget that the definitive study said ~ Folks with higher education are paid roughly equal to the market, or, less than in many fields.

Yup, those agency headquarters jobs pay better than the field jobs, but the requirements for employment there are higher, and working in an office filled with folks with Masters and Doctorates sitting in cubicles is really not unusual here.

Not everybody is an SES grade ~ and if there's any level where standards are slack it's the SES ~ but folks around here are getting the same pay you get there for the same jobs that require a BA+,

At the same time the cost of living is higher.

116 posted on 08/11/2012 2:13:02 PM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 113 | View Replies]

To: Starboard

Contractors have two problems ~ (1) they never let you know when they’ve broken your computer ~ they just walk away and are never seen again, and (2) they all have problems with math ~ particularly the part about the difference between HOURS and MINUTES. Have to watch them like a hawk to avoid inadvertent overpayment. Not that they lack in honesty, but who let them in this building?


117 posted on 08/11/2012 2:16:21 PM PDT by muawiyah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 114 | View Replies]

To: muawiyah
My brother worked as a Contractor, Senior Software Engineer, for the FAA for ten years, no direction, no Idea, and no leadership. His opinion, these people are F’d up.
118 posted on 08/11/2012 2:28:33 PM PDT by Little Bill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 117 | View Replies]

To: muawiyah

“The total cost for salaries and benefits for every civilian employee or soldier is less than 10% of total federal costs.
So, tell me, what are you people doing with the other 90%?”

Gotta start somewhere. Most of the people are a useless and costly waste; both when they work and when retired, too.

Military excepted.

Govt. is overhead. When you start cutting overhead, you are doing good. Very good.

And the ones being cut always come up with excuses like you did. Question—did you or do you work for government, honestly?


119 posted on 08/11/2012 4:23:33 PM PDT by truth_seeker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 106 | View Replies]

Self-ping for later reference.


120 posted on 08/11/2012 5:52:54 PM PDT by dsm69
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 81-100101-120121-140 ... 161-165 next last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson