Posted on 11/11/2010 3:42:33 AM PST by Scanian
America has woken up to the fact that much of our fiscal crisis at the state and federal levels has been caused by the rich salary, benefit, and pension packages of government workers. Chris Christie, Republican Governor of New Jersey, has become a YouTube sensation by clearly articulating the problem. So does this USA Today article:
"The number of federal workers earning $150,000 or more a year has soared tenfold in the past five years and doubled since President Obama took office, a USA TODAY analysis finds.
The fast-growing pay of federal employees has captured the attention of fiscally conservative Republicans who won control of the U.S. House of Representatives in last week's elections. Already, some lawmakers are planning to use the lame-duck session that starts Monday to challenge the president's plan to give a 1.4% across-the-board pay raise to 2.1 million federal workers.
Federal workers earning $150,000 or more make up 3.9% of the workforce, up from 0.4% in 2005. Since 2000, federal pay and benefits have increased 3% annually above inflation compared with 0.8% for private workers"
Compounding the fiscal time bomb (a nuclear one at that) is the fact that the government work force has also grown tremendously over the years.
There has been a long-running vicious cycle playing out over the years. Politicians (mostly, but not exclusively, Democrats) have been signing generous agreements with government workers and their unions. In return, the government workers provide a solid voting block, and the public employee unions can use their enlarged dues to funnel money to Democratic campaigns. There was a reason -- beyond their leftist ideological beliefs and animus towards businesses -- that both Barack and Michelle Obama counseled people to go to work for the government. Those government workers become a special interest group
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Just saw on Drudge how the state dept / white house is sending more $$ to Palestine to the tune of 150 MILLION.
That’s not even low hanging fruit, that’s on the GROUND fruit.
STOP GIVING MY MONEY AWAY.
Here in NJ our governor uses real examples to demonstrate how much is thrown at pubic school teachers and other state and municipal employees; it has become so out of control in NJ that many Americans are fleeing along with the corporations that employ them. Under our previous governor, NJ lost population in terms of Americans, but stayed “in the black” due to illegal aliens.
The Voters are outraged with these Unions and the pay and benefits they get.
If they weren’t so invested in the schemes themselves, the Republicans could have made this the # 1 issue of the election. If anybody developed a coherent message around it, I didn’t hear it.
“The Voters are outraged with these Unions and the pay and benefits they get.”
They should be; their pay is stagnant (for those that work) and those benefits disappeared from the private sector over a decade ago, yet they’re expected to provide them to people who theoretically work for them. In fact, losing your job doesn’t exempt you from property taxes, so we have unemployed people paying elementary school teachers $100K+ for their six hours of service 180 days a year...
And the unions want us to bailout their under funded pension plans.
When I started in the Air Force (early 80s), it was an accepted fact that Government employees made a pittance while Contractors made “big bucks”. As a 2LT, I got expressions of sympathy from my fellow engineering grads at my low starting salary (about $23K to their $30K). Sometime in the 90s that changed. Now, in many cases, Government employees make more than the Contractors who actually keep things humming. And their benefits are better to boot. In some cases its justified—in most, its not.
It was also a case of you get what you pay for. Again, in the 80s, some on the Governemnt side were there because they couldn’t get a higher paying job elsewhere—they traded pay for security. No one wants dolts on the Government side, so the pay has to be somewhat competitive. But it shouldn’t be more.
NJ lost population in terms of Americans, but stayed “in the black” due to illegal aliens.
$150K is a lot of money in Des Moines or Topeka.
If you move the bureaucracies to those low cost of living areas you could cut federal wages in half with no pain to anyone.
Metro DC has become very expensive because of the incredible growth of the federal government (and associated contractors, lobbyists, etc.). There would be many benefits to moving large chunks of the bureaucracy out to the heartland.
Yes, and the “cost of living” increases have to stop. It was an insane idea to put into effect a law which would untimately enable government retirees to draw more than they earned while working. THAT MUST BE CHANGED!
I hope this isn't going to be the sole plan of the Republicans for reducing the deficit. If the Republicans go in and do a across-the-board, everybody-feel-the-pain, types of cuts, I think the American people will grumble but will accept it. Entitlements, farm subsidies, military, and, yes, government. If we start having class warfare (cut this but DON'T cut that), then nothing will get cut. Cutting federal workers salaries is just a very small drop in the vast deficit ocean.
Time to cut the tail off the dog.
Pray for America
Poster: “In the last five years senior managers rose by 0.4% (one half of one percent)!!!”
Article: “...Federal workers earning $150,000 or more make up 3.9% of the workforce, up from 0.4% in 2005.”
I’m coming up with an increase of 3.5% of the workforce, or a nearly ninefold increase in five years.
They should start with the elected representatives. These people ran for office to serve the country. Service requires some degree of sacrifice. Non of them should make any more than the lowest military officer’s paygrade. Each of them should also have their operating budget tight and closely monitored.
I agree 100%. Also they need to raise the retirement age to these gov't employees to at least 62 if not 65.
Gov't employees if they have their time in retire at age 53-54-55 with 85-90% of their pay that's insane. Within a few years time Cola's get them over their working pay
But yet the gov't now is telling me I cannot get my SS until age 68 or 69.
A fire chief in my town retired at age 54, get's his full gov't pension and then got another job as a state fire marshall. I about had a cow over that one.
I don't begrudge anyone a decent salary but these conditions are crazy.
Cutting government salaries and benefits is a major part of the deficit ocean. Pay and benefit levels need to be cut big time. Headcounts need to be reduced also. Move from here to elimination of govt programs. There is no time to waste.
"X" number of taxpayers left the State. "X+Y" number of illegals moved there or were born there, to replace them, for a net gain in population.
Just like in finance, red=gain, black=deficit.
Oops sorry, Red=Deficit, Black=Gain.
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