Paul Ryan’s budget plan hits federal workers

Washington Post ^ | August 11, 2012 | Joe Davidson, Federal Eye

[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.”

[muawiyah]

USPS began sending an annual report on where all your income came from about 25 years ago.

Since that agency is almost totally unionized (Except for top level staff and management) everybody knew those things already.

In any case, the reason compensation for health care is made directly by the employer is so that you avoid income taxes on that amount. Anything paid by your employer as compensation or as a benefit is accounted for by the employer as an employee expense, and that's whether you are dealing with the private sector or the government.

If folks want to pay their employees more up front, and subject them to taxes they wouldn't otherwise have to pay, I suppose they'll be willing to supplement those payments to make up for the additional tax liability on the employee, right?

Of course not ~ they won't do that. Every employer has people in personnel and accounting whose job is to nickel and dime everything to save every penny.

It is to the company's advantage to pay people such that the employee's tax liability is minimized while the utility of their compensation is maximized.

What happens to tax payers who want a greater burden of market level compensation placed on their employees is they get to pay higher taxes down the road.

[xrmusn]

overpaid $78 billion on their retirement plans and have been subsidizing the federal government the last few years.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Makes you feel ‘good’ to realize the Fed is ‘guarding the chicken coop’ in regards YOUR retirement fund doesn’t it..
Now you know how us SSA types feel. Did you go private sector after USPS retirement? Of course CM’s contributions went into your fund .....

You still up by the substation?

[Jim from C-Town]

The Post Office should have been sold to a private entity decades ago. Other large countries rely on private postal services already. They run at a profit, ours is running a $5 billion per quarter loss. That is the tax payer money for the privilege of receiving home delivered junk mail.

[muawiyah]

Not really ~ not going to let you kill me in my bed for one thing, and when I get up I will be really, really PO'd and with no police to stop me, I'm coming after your stuff!

Sounds like a deal eh!

[Reddon]

Paul Ryan’s budget plan hits federal workers

I would sure hope so. I doubt if it hits them hard enough though.

[Brad from Tennessee]

Federal workers predominately vote Democrat. Most are union members. The real design behind ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, Cap-and-Trade and the “Stimulus” is to expand government in order to expand the ranks and the coffers of the Democratic Party and the AFL-CIO. The best bureaucracy is the one that is understaffed. When one worker has to do the job of two he doesn't have time to loaf, steal or go to “seminars” in the Bahamas.

[Jim from C-Town]

NONMILLITARY.

Get the governemnt out of the areas it should NEVER have been and the country can absorb all the effective and useful governemnt workers into a booming economy quite easily. Both of them!

[muawiyah]

By now you should have figured out no one trusts the federal government ~ never did.

[Wuli]

You could also privatize the FDA and USDA.

[tanknetter]

Could save a bundle by giving Civil Service System back to federal workers and eliminating the corruption and excess bonuses of the Senior Executive Service.

My attitude all along has been that doing a blanket freeze on pay raises (beyond the graduated step increases which are still in place) amounts to using a shotgun instead of a scalpel. Civil Service reform, including merit-based pay increases/bonuses AND decreases, could be used to encourage the slackers to leave while incentivizing the good workers to stay and be as productive as possible.

As Conservatives, we should want the government to reduce in size (and with the Boomer retirements there's a fantastic, once in a couple generations opportunity to do that through attrition) focus on the inherently governmental and operate more like the private sector.

Across-the-board freezes not only don't do that but they make the situation worse because it actually encourages the slackers to stay and the good, productive folks to leave.

I'd also add that DHS is using separated military vets as a hiring pool right now. I know a bunch of these folks that have gone in and they are all Conservatives, hard-chargers and really want to be part of the solution, not the problem.

[muawiyah]

the founders didn’t believe in standing armies, so there’s really no reason to exclude the military from being eliminated under your proposal ~ not and be consistent with the Founders.

[Ax]

I am a retired federal officer. My daughter is following in my footsteps. She just got back from her third deployment to Afghanistan. Please don’t kill us.

[P.O.E.]

They can include their Solitaire statistics on their resumes.

[perez24]

You do understand that the TSP pretty much IS your retirement?

Still, posting the “government (i.e. taxpayer) contributions” is a good idea.

[muawiyah]

No idea where you get the idea federal government workers vote mostly for Democrats. Being unionized they usually vote half and half, same as any other unionized group. Been that way since Eisenhower.

Then, about 1/3 of the federal workforce are military personnel ~ they have never seemed to be a rating hot bed of Democrat advocacy.

[chuckee]

“Paul Ryan’s budget plan hits federal workers”

Uh, oh, there goes the feeder cattle in northern Virginia!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I like it already.

[muawiyah]

Ryan's plan makes a show of tapping federal workers ~ that's all.

The otherside of the equation is that the way the additional deposits are accounted for, all that happens is the federal unfunded liability will climb even faster as greater expectations for earlier and larger payoffs will be allowed.

That's the history of all government retirement plans. Take more. Pay more.,P>It's one of those areas of life where the actuarial tables play a larger part than you can imagine ~ that's why actuaries are trained to deal with these problems.

[tanknetter]

Sorry, posted the wrong link above. this one explicitly talks about DHS's Military Veteran hiring initiatives, the previous one only applied to firefighters.

[Jim from C-Town]

Yeah, sell the land on the open market. Why would we GIVE it to the states. there is a massive amount of land owned by the Federal Government. In the Western States it is almost fifty percent. Not all of it is Park Land. Very little is. Selling that land would open it to development and mineral exploration. That helps the economy.

The proceeds can be earmarked to paying down the debt.

We have a STRUCTURAL problem with the budget. We have to change or eliminate the entitlement programs and WE MUST get the Federal workforce more in line with the private sector. That includes ELIMINATION of many, many, many IF NOT MOST nonmilitary workers.

The Federal Government dose WAY TOO MUCH. a wholesale elimination of several departments along with the personnel is more than called for, it is an absolute necessity!