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 ...
How do you figure state and local government workers don’t pay for their benefits?
I’m a county government employee and I pay 7% of my salary into the retirement plan. Employees pay for their health insurance too. I don’t carry their plan b/c I have my own but others do.
I’m sure some states have different pay plans but to make a blanket statement like that may not be quite accurate.
“massive deficit.”
No we wouldn’t. There’d be no one to write all those checks.
The federal workforce has been remarkably stable since the early 1960s. 50 years of no significant growth!
It’s pretty accurate since the greater part of your municipal work force consists of TEACHERS, and that’s a competitive field. There is a market for teachers
The ‘MACHINES” will write the checks ~ just as they do now!
You are the one proposing death to Federal Workers. I simply believe we need allot fewer of them.
I have never met a Federal Worker who hasn't said they could ‘make more money in the private sector’. I would simply give many of them a chance to increase their lifestyle with a pink slip from their terrible underpaid Federal position.
Good Luck to them. i doubt many will find competitive industry as forgiving and lucrative as a government funded lifestyle.
I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
coffee run with my coworkers will be interesting. They’ll be frantic.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
The late Ron Smith, WBAL Baltimore MD, conducted a survey after a mayor that had really grown the city work force left office and asked ‘What should be done’.
Almost as a man(woman) ALL callers said they should fire the excess.
While Ron agreed that would be a good idea, he stated, now all these folks will go BACK to unemployment, welfare, food stamps, disability etc etc etc.
The thought being at least if they were on the ‘job’ they may get a couple of hours a week out of them, whereas 100% on the dole meant you got absolutely NOTHING from them.
Just a ‘thought’.
And yes, they never should have been hired in the first place but when you are in a state that emphasizes the ‘rights’ of illegals and druggies/drunks you are just asking for problems. Add to that by driving businesses out because of excessive taxing and regulations you have a place where virtually the ONLY income is from the few worker ants that work.
The real threat was when all the have nots got together and ousted the haves, next you will have the worker ants realize that for a few dollars less they can have the good life and not punch a clock for 8 hr per day....
And the vicious cyle as well as the “Beat Goes On”.
Democrats’ non-budget destroys all of America. What’s your point?
No, it isn't. Under FERS, there are three separate retirement funds; TSP is one of them and is completely voluntary. The second leg is social security, the third leg is the actual government provided retirement plan that I pay a pittance into. That's the fund they're talking about increasing contributions for.
““a substantial increase in the use of unaccountable private contractors and a much higher cost of providing services,””
I love this line. There is nothing more unaccountable than a federal employee. Just look at Treasury employees....it’s an established fact that you can get prostitutes on taxpayers dime, ignore your duties to protect the President of the United States, and then lie about it and your punishment is a full retirement.
To the extent that private contractors have a “much higher cost of providing services” it is an incompetent federal employee that is the cause.
If a private contractor is “unaccountable” whose fault is that? A federal employee who is neither competent at their job, nor inclined to work a full day to become proficient.
The lies, the deceit, the incompetence never ends. The only way to reduce the liars in government is to make sure there are numerically fewer - hopefully drastically so - federal employees.
I didn’t call for your death. Someone else made the statement, I only agreed.
No one wants to kill Federal retirees, at least not most of them.
Just Kidding.
Yesterday on Andy Parks' radio program he said that there are about 1,000 bureaucrats in the USDA for every farmer.
Then we will pray for a Rob McKenna victory for governor over Jay Inslee. At least, no matter what happens, we're getting rid of Gov. Gregoire.
“I find it difficult to believe that you are an informed person ~ everyone who is anyone knows that if you fired all the federal employees and murdered all the federal retirees in their beds, when you woke up the next morning you’d still be running a massive deficit.”
I find it not difficult to believe that you aren’t so bright, because you are a retired Fed, right?
If you were in any way capable of abstract thought, you would know that a federal employee costs far far more than their compensation & benefits. Reducing the incompetence in government is simply a matter of reducing the number of federal employees - we save in their pay & benefits, in maintaining lavish facilities for them, and in avoiding the future mistakes (for which they are nearly universally not held accountable).
All of those things will lower the cost of government massively. We’ll still have problems, to be sure, but they won’t be as big, and the obstructions to their solution will be fewer.
“The only way to reduce the liars in government is to make sure there are numerically fewer - hopefully drastically so - federal employees.”
At last, class warfare we can believe in: The Makers Vs. The Takers
You’re right. It’s not the full pension deal that the CSRS people have full deal that the older ones have but it’s still something. Adding to the contributions there would make sense.
I agree with you but highly doubt Ryan's ability to make it happen.
The Washingtonians from both parties have no intention of reducing the size of government or the Federal work force and will conspire to stop it from happening by whatever means necessary.
Notice also how Ryan doesn't talk about eliminating the IRS, or any other Department wholesale and goes for the weak "attrition" method that will never play out.
This is just talk from another DC politician, DC will never reform itself.
Thanks, Jim. I picked up on that.
How many more ‘Contract Workers’ are there. Many who are double dippers who receive both a public pension as well as a contract salary?
As a former federal manager, bring on the contractors, at least you can fire them quickly.
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