Posted on 08/30/2010 6:15:33 AM PDT by Poundstone
As a retired federal government employee, I’m offended when I hear Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and a host of other conservative talk show hosts bash all levels of government employees. It seems the all-time favorite government employee to bash works for the Department of Motor Vehicles.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, federal government employees in 2008 earn an average of $67,691 compared to $60,046 in the private sector. This doesn’t count the benefits all federal government employees enjoy.
Not all federal government employees make as much as their private sector counterparts, but many do. For example, a registered nurse working for the Veterans Administration might make $74,460 compared to a nurse at a private hospital making $63,780. However, a federal government optometrist makes about $61,530 compared to an optometrist working in the private sectors who makes $106,665 salary.
What people like Limbaugh and Hannity probably don’t realize is that there are downsides to working for the federal government. Employees face severe restrictions and sanctions on many things everyone in the private sector take for granted. Congress alone determines federal employee salaries and benefits, not the marketplace. Employee organizations lobby Congress, but it’s unlawful for employees to strike if they don’t get what they want.
(Excerpt) Read more at northstarnational.com ...
And these are the people who control the voting machines? Yikes!
You wanna know what I got against government workers??? Here goes my personal experience. I have an easement on the side of my property (county owned) that I have maintained for the past 22 years. The ground has settled so deep that an almost permanent pond is formed, making it impossible to mow and a breeding ground for misquitoes. The county was widening the ditch on the other side of the road, taking the prime topsoil and trucking it off the a landfill. I asked them if they would dump 2 truckloads in my easement. I told them I would spread it and seed it myself, at my own expense. This is the reply I got..,.
We cannot dump the dirt there until an environment impact study is done. Once this is completed, we can then truck in dirt from another area and fill it. We cannot let you spread it, so a work order would have to be generated to get a gradall, operator and spotter with a foreman here to level it. Then, we would have to get a permit to seed the area with the correct mixture of grass seed, and submit a work order to have our hydroseeders come out and do the job....
I estimate the total cost of this union run operation to be around 100 man hours at a cost of 45.00 (minimum) per hour, or 4500.00 public dollars, plus equipment and material. I could get a truckload of dirt for 145.00, and 25 pounds of grass seed for 39.99 plus tax.
You wanna know what I have against public employees????? This story says it all
Good point. I feel better already.
Liberals have some kind of fantasy that factories would immediately start dumping waste into the nearest schoolyard. The reality is that the public nor the states would allow that to happen. We’ll still have regulation at the state level but it would be a lot more efficient and cheaper.
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Compartmentalized too, by virtue of limited jurisdictions.
The whole system could not be corrupted in one fell swoop.
Fat chance. The people who profit from shipping your job overseas, or illegally bringing in somebody to do it here for pennies, have a vested interest in keeping the complaints focused somewhere else -- and they own media megaphones.
Yep. As I noted earlier, a big part of that is Reagan-era reforms that shifted some of the routine scutwork (e.g. building janitorial services) to outside contractors. Transferring lower-paid jobs to the private sector artificially creates an impression that government wages went up and non-government wages went down, even though the same jobs are being done for the government.
I believe local government is in complete control of voting except in the case of the federal voting rights act which Republicans re-authorized with NO changes spinelessly in late 2006. You can see where that got them.
“Lewis also pointed out that the average cash value of a government employee who retires at 55 benefits are around $3 million over the rest of their life.”
Typo. I meant $1 million.
I live in the WDC area. This is the hell-hole nexis of government employees and retired government employees. I bet you could vaporize 75% of the employees and no one (except them) would notice. For instance, there is a massive twin tower complex for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with thousands of employees. Just what the hell do they do? There hasn’t been a new US nuclear power plant build in decades. This repeated in this area in hundreds of buildings and tens of thousands of federal employees. This sort of thing is repeated also at the county and city government levels. Disgusting. Criticism them???? Ooooooh...their sensitivities must be respected. Rubbish. They are for the most part parasitic LIBs spending lavishly other peoples’ money (OPM). Please...some government “worker” write in and tell me something productive you did in your career.
EXACTLY!
While I was still active duty in a DoD agency I made this exact statement to a GM-15 and a couple of his cohorts (all scientists and engineers). They could not comprehend what I was saying as they could not get past the initial phase of them paying taxes.
It did not endear me to them.
When they started drilling for oil around here, liberals screamed bloody murder and smart people started environmental reclaimation businesses (Landscapers). After a drilling rig is removed, the landscapers come in, test and remove any contaminated soil and return the land to its natural state.
Unfortunately the EPA regs have gotten so bad that the landscapers themselves are struggling.
That is because white collar private sector employees are on salary and don’t get paid for working more than 40 hours a week, which they almost ivariably do. This guy shouldn’t cheat on his time card. If he has a problem with that he can always quit, but he will not. There is a reason governemnt employee turnover is very low and it is not the long hours, low pay or ardous conditions they endure.
Pay too little for a federally employed optometrist? Good, go get a real job. But let's look at this supposed hard up federally employed optometrist. This person can look forward to only working 11 out of the 12 months a year, the rest is vacation time. Oh, and if that's too much, there's always sick time as well. Add $5,000 to the comparison salary for this single benefit.
Benefits. Whereas a private optometrist likely will have to provide their own health plan, the federal plan comes to a whopping $1,100 a month for the average beneficiary. So we're up to over $18,000 in benefits that aren't accounted for in the comparison salary.
But it doesn't stop there. The private optometrist must provide for their own retirement, their own life insurance. Combined, these benefits total another $14,000 a year. College tuition assistance and loan repayments can total $6,000 a year as well. $38,000 in benefits, not to mention the federal employee gets all this lovely stuff tax free, whereas the privately employed one must file forms, and their health care is only deductible if they have their business pay for it. Meanwhile, the higher tax bracket of the privately employed person means they get soaked at gunpoint more money to pay for that federal employee than the employee themselves must cough up.
I'd say on the whole, using the ‘poor me’ example, that they're making out like a bandit on our dime.
Now, for the moment of truth: What would that same federal employee be paid if they were an active duty service member on the ground in Iraq? $48,000, assuming they have been on active duty for at least six years.
As a private citizen who is forced to pay the benefits and salaries of federal employees, I'd like to say: My fondest wish is for them to have their salaries and benefits slashed in half, as a starting point, and then reduced from there. I'm more than willing to consider federal minimum wage and public assistance benefits as being the floor. Don't like it? Get a job where you produce something, rather than leaching off the public dollar.
Case in point: I work with two people who are the most worthless people on the face of the planet (ok, slight exageration but you get my point). Out of a 8 hour workday they spend 5-6 of it in the smokers area outside my office and the rest complaining about how nobody does anything right but them.
I get an admin position in that office and from day one it's nothing but hell. They've been ostracizing me for three years now and management will do nothing about it (and all because the lights got turned on it the office, long story). They constantly accuse of making their jobs harder because I adhere to policy and require accountability and civility when dealing with office personnel, neither of which they are capable of. And now, with 3 months left until their retirement they are doing everything they can to make my job that much harder before they leave and yet again the management will do nothing to stop them.
It's these kind of people that give the hard working ones a bad name and bad rap.
With that, Greg proves that he has no idea about the true market for any of these job. That is interesting, considering he held at least one of them.
Many government jobs are unique. Police officers, judges, prosecutors, school teachers, special agents for the FBI, DEA, Border Patrol agents, soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, coastguardsmen, astronauts, diplomats and CIA spies are all exclusively government positionsUmmm ... no. EVERY ONE of those can and is being done today MORE EFFECTIVELY by the private sector.
Did you watch the John Stoessel Show last night on Fox Business?
The Federal Government should pare down to its constitutionally authorized functions, getting rid of Agencies and Departments that are not within its constitutional purview. then it’s ranks would shrink appropriately. That being said…
I am amazed at all the misinformation that has been on this. This is an attempt to get the facts straight.
Not every Agency is unionized.
Indeed, Fair Labor Standards Act DOES apply to Federal Workers,
Mostly at GS-9 and below, just as it does in the private sector. It does not apply to those who are considered Professional, Administrative (management types), or Executives.
Federal workers who are FLSA exempt may, indeed work many extra hours without compensation, and many do. There are NO GS-15s who are restricted to 40 hours a week. The only restrictions on 40 hours a week are on the FLSA covered jobs for which Federal agencies do not want to pay overtime.
As far as outside employment, teaching, writing, etc. that is covered by the ethics laws 5 CFR 2635. The ethics laws are very cumbersome and confusing and prohibit many more activities than there is room for here.
Section 2635.807 …An employee…shall not receive compensation from any source other than the Government for teaching, speaking, or writing that relates to the employee’s official duties… or honorarium prohibition on receipt of compensation for an appearance, speech, or article.
Example: “An HR specialist employed by the publisher of a magazine to write an article on his hobby of collecting arrowheads. Even though the subject matter is unrelated to his official duties, he may not accept the publisher’s offer of $200 for the article. Because the compensation offered is for an article, its receipt would violate the honorarium prohibition contained in 2646.201 – 2636.205.
The benefits of Federal employees are good, but not as good as often thought and should not equated to those of Congress. They are not that generous. Federal employees contribute to their retirement plan, their health insurance plan, and simply purchase their life insurance plan. Under the FERS retirement (in effect since 1987) workers receive 1% of hi-3 average salary for every year of service (i.e., they would get less than 20% replacement for 20 years of service at age 60. In addition they do have an IRA type savings account to which the government contributes up to 5% if the employee also contributes up to 5%, but these are investments that have gone to pot the same as any other IRA.
It is untrue that Federal employees cannot be fired. Although it is certainly not an easy task and does not occur with the frequency as in the private sector due to the excessive appeal rights, it does often happen. This is not to say there are not derelict supervisors who choose to look the other way instead of dealing with poor employees (this happens in the private sector as well).
And do not forget that the private optometrist must pay for and assistants/clerical so that the lager amount alsoo has other costs.
Does anyone realize that the private sector is at the public t*t big time. Many large companies exist only for the government. The Dept. of Homeland Security and the DOD have more contractor employees than they have employees. The contractor’s employees make way more than the government employees. They don’t have the restrictions on perks,pay and benefits as the government employees and the tax payer is paying for those perks such as cars, bonuses etc. To hide the number of people actually working for the government, Congress contracts out the jobs. The government is actually about 3 times larger than people think.
I want to send YOU a bill for my PENSION. You’re retired, you’ve got the time to earn ME MY MONEY BABE!
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