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 ...
In reality the Fair Labor Standards Act doesn't apply to federal government employees, but it does apply to their equivalents in management and support at USPS. In reality the agencies make management and support personnel work under conditions approximating those that would apply if FLSA applied.
Here's where all the funny stories about government management come from ~ SCHEDULE C and APPOINTEES. That's where you get your pukes who never show up or spend all day in the toilet.
Really, this whole kerfluffle is an attempt to blow smoke and conceal the real problem -- illegal aliens depressing private-sector wages.
LOL -- Down with the CIA infidels! May fleas infest the armpits of the NSA worms who found my cell phone signal!
Yep -- and it also includes the minimum-wage contractor employees who sweep the floors and empty the trash in government offices. (That was one of Reagan's cost-cutting reforms, IIRC -- a good idea, but it does screw up attempts to compare bulk average to bulk average).
funny. The same guy who makes $106K a year in private could never hope to build a retirement package that comes anywhere near what a government employee recieves, via gratis of the American Taxpayer.
Public sector employees are similar to union thugs. Both take money that isn’t owed them. Both get jobs and KEEP them through thick and thin, no matter how incompetent. There are few if any public sector jobs or departments that couldn’t be more efficiently run by the private sector.
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Absolutely. Add to the list the professional and now multi-generational welfare collectors. Which in turn require further government admin, social workers, ems, police, etc.
They are an endangered species. And those talented competent workers when placed in the IRS, EPA, and other particularly pernicious departments are a true threat to us all.
All due to overtaxing the rest of the country and trying to insert Federal governance into areas traditionally left to the states. The Federal Mandarins want to make the states their stooges and gofers
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Versailles, 1788.
ALL the employees would be offered the option of early retirement or a job 75 miles away!
Then, you could buy "stamps by mail", etc. All the retail services you need from USPS are available from rural carriers.
I know one federal employee who told be they sent him and coworkers on a chartered bus to DC museum on American Native history to learn about how they were wiped out by the white European Christians, as part of a sensitivity diversity class.
Voters outside this area have no idea what goes on. This is why the SS debate urks me. I know it is a ponzi fraud and it is redistribution but why should we get our SS cut first when these people live like royalty? Seems like Rush has it right here.
Don’t get mad at Federal Employees. Get mad and kick out the congressmen that recklessly hire them and idiotically overcompensate them.
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I used to feel that way about affirmative action and those who gained by it.
Now I view it this way: the gunman, the bagman, and the getaway driver all need each other to effect the robbery. They are all thieves together. I believe the term is “accomplices”.
No more passes. The bank is empty.
In reality you can see exactly what kind of retirement you would have as a federal empllyee, or career military person. http://www.fedcalc.com/?gclid=CNODqMiy4aMCFUHt7Qod3Vem6Q
Sorry - no sympathy for fed or local employees - NONE
You are all paid by original taxpayers I.E. working folks that produce a good or service that you and others willingly purchase. And while you pay taxes on the wages that you’re paid from OUR taxes, you produce nothing that we as original taxpayers can identify as a good or service that we wish to pay for - excluding protection from invasion. And the government that you are part of and support through your possible membership in unions or simple acquisence, cannot even protect AZ from hispanic/or other invaders. Rather, YOUR bosses choose to sue the people that wish to protect themselves.
Further, guess you noticed that each new govenment program -fed or local- seems to require NEW personnel to staff. Bullpucky! Underutilized agencies can be reallocated to new tasks rather than going through the motions of actually doing something simply hoping for retirement.
I’m sure there are good people in govenment but good people that don’t speak out and manage their so-called business are just as much at fault as the slackers out there. Real, for profit businesses have to make tough decisions all the time. We don’t like laying off people. If you gov’t employees can’t see and correct at least 15% waste, than you are not competent and should be dismissed.
The federal employees need to cleaned out. It is federal employees that who do not investigate voter fraud, it is federal employees that do not stop medicare fraud, it is federal employees that stop ICE from doing their job, it is federal employees that are wasting our money, and I could go on.
I read that the two wealthiest counties for Afro-Americans border Washington DC
If you fired all the federal employees and laid off the military, you would discover that their salaries and benefits are pretty well rounded off in the federal budget so you wouldn’t see any difference.
Anyone can quickly and easily discover how many paid federal holidays there are for federal employees at the reference at the end of this statement. I think you are confounding “federal holidays” with “annual leave ~ that is paid vacation of 13 days ~ not terribly different than the private sector, and even with senior employees earning 26 days per year, nothing like AFL-CIO-UAW vacations STARTING at 12 weeks per annum. BTW, my count is that there are 10 federal holidays, 6 of which are NOT WIDELY OBSERVED ~ but that’s between you and your boss. So, take a look at http://www.opm.gov/operating_status_schedules/fedhol/2019.asp
I was a Customs Inspector. I protected our borders, literally, when I worked on the Mexican border. When I transferred to a seaport, I became adept at detecting import fraud. The additional import duties, penalties and interest that were paid because I did my job well, was many times more than the salary I earned. And I did earn it. I worked very hard at my job. My first year on the job, my base salary was about $15,000. I was putting my life on the line for my country for a pittance.
I don’t know what the current figures are but it used o be said that the Customs Service (I was an inspector prior o 9/11, when the change was made to Customs and Border Protection) earned 12 dollars for every dollar that was spent on the Agency.
I am not asking for thanks or appreciation. I just want the complaining to stop.
The problem here is the traditional news media focus on the estimated fraud and not on the successful prosecutions.
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