Paul Ryan’s budget plan hits federal workers

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.”

Nobody forgets anything. The Senate came up with a way to invent a vast storehouse of present value money by having USPS give them $5.3 billion per year for 10 years, but not payable for anything until 75 years in the future.

They then claimed they'd reduced the deficit.

The Postal Reorganization Act and the various laws regulating the Postal Rate Commission simply do not allow for BS billing to be used for support of postage rates.

So, no new revenue from a backdoor Republican tax increase, and next thing you know USPS runs out of money to operate. They usually keep to a line where their expenses are within 2% of revenues.

This STAMP TAX simply doesn't allow for that.

PLUS the federal government already owes them $78 billion for OPM overcharges on the employee retirement plans. That money ought to be paid to me ~ not used to defray GSA parties!

You still don't know enough about the situation or the laws regulating USPS to make meaningful comments.

Now, about Republicans making backdoor tax increases ~ that's exactly what this phony baloney charge to USPS Was about ~ apparently the folks who came up with the idea imagined the Postal Rate Commission would simply agree to jack up postage rates another $5.3 billion and everything would be OK. Guess they forgot the law doesn't allow that. Subsequently they have taken no action to change the law.

USPS is being micromanaged and overregulated to death by Congress.

You’re not accurately describing what happened. The Congress required the USPS to prefund its pension liabilities for the next 75 years because it doesn’t make a profit, and the idea was to make sure that workers’ retirement would actually be paid for by the USPS, instead of the USPS defaulting and asking the taxpayer to pick it up.

Tell me where I am wrong.

No, it wasn't asked to prefund it's pension liabilities ~ the issue was health insurance for 'FUTURE RETIREES" ~ the prefunding language is inadequate to the task ~ none of the proposed beneficiaries are even employees!

The trick had to do with reducing the deficit. This is part of the smoke and mirrors sort of thing ~ I gather some of the folks in Congress who voted for this imagined that USPS is just like other agencies and can just draw on the treasury willy nilly.

BTW, USPS is more than current on prefunding retirement funds ~

The other part where you are really wrong is that Congress gave a damned about any of this.

USPS is the ONLY Federal agency that has met funding requirements for both CSRS and FERS ~ O N L Y!!!!!

They have overpaid by $78 billion.

ALL OTHER FEDERAL agencies have failed to meet funding requirements for both systems and are BILLIONS in arrears.

If Congress cared that wouldn't be the case!

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.