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Abolish FReepathons
Posted on 01/04/2012 6:18:01 AM PST by Poundstone
Poor guy, you had to go to classes AND get a security clearance. The stress on you must have been horrible.
All of us poor little felonious liberal plumbers, mechanics, and electricians stuck here outside of government couldn’t possibly know the burden under which you must labor.
If only we had done did our cypherin’ and writin’ we too could be government employees - just like all the other good conservatives in the world.
We should really appreciate all you government employees do for us more. Really, no tax burden is too high for the important things that government has to do.
Ok, Austin Milbarge, I suppose you really did earn that promotion to GLG-20 afterall.
Keep up the good work.
Regarding putting up with "the citizenry", neither "the citizenry" nor "the taxpayers" paid for my salary or benefits ~ the RATE PAYERS ~ folks who paid postage ~ paid.
The citizenry, who didn't pay, were, in general, obnoxious. How dare I, a mere civil servant, stand in the way of some greed ball after another government subsidy, or more service for no payment.
I know you people better than you imagine.
You all want a government subsidy and no competeition!.
I'd like to see ALL of government put on the USER FEE basis ~ not just the post office. It perfectly clarifies who does what to who with which and who is deserving and who's a moocher.
No. Its the same thing exactly. Its paid days off for not working. The money to pay for it comes out of the same pocket and the inefficiency of paying a new hire to take over a month off every year might just help explain the USPS's dire financial straights.
I know you people better than you imagine. You all want a government subsidy and no competeition!.
Er, what? What me people want are federal salaries and benefits to reflect the market, not congressional vote buying. Per the USPS, they are in a huge financial hole, yet doling out 36 paid days off a year to new hires (that is over 7 work weeks).
Going back to the original point of my comment. If you get 36-46 paid days off a year and a healthy pension for an early retirement, you should expect to make substantially less than someone doing the same type of work, who goes to work without all of the benefits.
Federal employees always justified the lavish benefits by stating that they were underpaid. When they got the benefits cemented, they then ensured that their salaries increased far past the national average. It is no coincidence that the highest average per capita income counties in the United States all surround Washington, D.C.
Then you sidestep my proposal to put the WHOLE government on a user fee basis ~ that's where the customers who make use of a government service pay for it.
You want a war, fork over the bucks. You want your river dredged, pay for it. There are a gazillion things we could do here.
It is required by law that postal wages and benefits MATCH the private sector. Whatever you pay for someone without a criminal record who can read, write, walk and lift a 70 pound sack, and has a driver's license WITH NO POINTS ~ who is willing to work nights, split shifts, split weeks, etc. ~ that's what they get paid. The time off is considered in the development of the wage and benefit package.
Regarding the dire financial straits, your Congresscritter and your Senators decided back in 2006 (last gasps of the Bush regime) that, lo and behold, USPS should be charged something to balance the budget.
Everybody's favorite RINO, Olympia Snow came up with this deal where USPS would pay the US government $5.8 billion each year for 10 years to pay for employee health benefits 75 years from now.
Does that make sense to you?
Obviously it does because you and everybody else who ever posts on this issue claims that Snow is both a horrid RINO, crazy as a loon, but at the same time it's something USPS did that's bringing about the financial problems.
No, I think it's something the crazy old RINO lady did!
The Postal Rate Commission evaluates USPS requests for postage rate changes. They allow costs for Postal salaries, buildings, gasoline, trucks, heat, electricity ~ but they don't allow costs for just throwing money away to Congress to subsidize gonorrhea epidemics in Canada (for example).
So, the PRC rejected a price increase to cover the cost of that $5.8 billion payment. The USPS had to borrow the money. They have limited borrowing authority, and they used it all up paying Congress for a reduction in the federal deficit that never occurred.
Plus, there's the $78 billion USPS paid into the retirement fund ABOVE what was required.
I think the PMG would be happy for the US government to simply return the money.
The USPS has a federally mandated monopoly, federally mandated wages (hardly comparable to REAL going rate), and federally mandated fees. You get to count federal work years toward USPS retirement. To say it isn't a federal job is semantic at best.
Postal service is mandated by the Constitution, but the “how” part is totally up in the air.
Yes, I'm all for user fees where they are conceivably possible. It is hard to determine a user fee for the State Department and CIA.
Per Sen. Snow and retirement funding issues of the USPS, is the retirement plan over-funded? “more than the minimum” doesn't equate to over-funding. In fact, if its not over-funded, the whole issue rather reinforces my point concerning extravagant benefits.
You appear to like the idea of the USPS being governmental when it suits and not being governmental when it suits.
Delivering paper to people's businesses and homes is a technologically dying endeavor. The USPS needs to change substantially if it isn't going to simply exist as a giant, costly, anachronism. If I am right, and the USPS becomes a shadow of its former self, then prefunding those pensions might be the only way they'll ever pay out.
Regarding how I think of USPS, that's the state of the law today. Congress set it up ~ under Nixon ~ as what is called an Independent Executive Establishment. What that does is give it an independent budget and borrowing authority.
Concerning "federally mandated" anything, that particular term is like "buffer zone" when proferred at a planning and zoning board meeting. It really doesn't have a LEGAL meaning so it's just a term. obviously USPS as a government agency is going to be involved in "federally mandaed" stuff ~ but operating under the Postal Reorganization Act, it has certain obligations and standards ~ and as the Chief Rino Boyich in Charge, Olympia Snowe was soon to discover, OTHER government agencies such as the Postal Rate Commission (the regulatory authority over postage rates and service standards for the classes of mail) that doesn't mean USPS gets to charge postage for non-mail related services, e.g. balancing the budget.
Except for that the organization is fiscally sound ~ the overpayment on retirements actually involves taking perfectly good money from the employees and handing it over to the wastrals at Office of Personnel Management (the agency that manages the federal employee retirement systems) Since we've found out that money wasn't due, I'd kinda' like to have it back ~ there are bills to pay!
BTW, the federal income tax is "federally mandated" and so is "Daylight Savings".
It's another way of saying "pass a law".
Next time I expect you to join me in condemning RINOS like Olympia Snowe who screw with government like they're just a sandbox bully who suffers from encephaly.
Regarding your comment on “contracting out”, sure, they do that too. The US government pays more for contract work than it does employees.
The only experts the federal government needs is professional military, and experts in shutting down departments.
“The US government pays more for contract work than it does employees.”
As in all things government, they neglect the large cost of future “entitlements” when calculating these costs.
A federal employee has literally a multi-million dollar cost tail that any honest enterprise would have to include. A contractor has a current budget year cost that may exceed a federal employee, if you ignore the future obligation that every other enterprise that is not government must account for.
So if you truly believe this, you are either stupid or dishonest. Which is it?
Postal employee retirements are FULLY FUNDED, even considering COLA.
Been that way for several decades in fact.
“If you think that hasn’t been considered you are as dumb as a board.
Postal employee retirements are FULLY FUNDED, even considering COLA.”
As you know, Newman, the postal issues are not the same as the rest of government. We can argue that until we a blue in the face.
Have you ever done an A76 study? They do not consider all the costs of a government employee when looking at contracting out government functions.
if we contracted out the bulk of postal services, we could take that pre-funded retirement and give it back to the taxpayers......(except it’s already been taken and long spent).
You sure you're not a Lefty?
As far as working out the numbers on the personnel costs of contracts, I've been involved in that ~ USPS does it differently, but every now and then you'll find a guy doing it the old way where they even attempt to see what would happen should that employee ever become a federal worker ~ which used to require giving them credit for the time when they finally retired.
That was changed by law a couple of decades ago ~ you no longer earn federal time by working under a federal contract.
Poor guy, You see everything through the lens of the postal service.
I think you admitted I was right. Whenever looking at contracting out, the government never uses the future employee costs in the equation.
If they did, we’d contract out a huge percentage of government functions, or get rid of them altogether.
I don’t think it’s even worth arguing about it’s so obvious.
Regarding theft. I’m sure neither you nor any government employee or organization can claim the moral high ground there.
The taxpaying producers in the country deserve the sympathy, not anyone else.
To listen to you and other government employee posters on this thread, your disdain for the folks that pay for it - the implicit assumption that you deserve everything you get because everyone else is “blue collar” (as if that is shameful!) and that if you aren’t a government employee you couldn’t possibly be conservative in any way is mildly amusing.
You guys are just out-of-touch. Since we can’t pay for it all, it’s very likely large numbers of you will have the opportunity to reconnect with the real world someday.
Sorry, your problem in this debate is you paid for NONE OF IT ~ and your disparagement of honesty suggests you certainly didn't pay what was due to the post office.
With your average federal employee coming on the job at the age of 35 he or she is certainly aware of what it takes to do and get a job. NOT STEALING STUFF is the #1 thing at USPS.
LOL.....I have no idea what you just said. Are you saying that the reason I want smaller government is because I was somehow caught “cheating on postage”?
This is funny stuff....
You may want to clarify your last post in the morning after the scotch works its way through....
Remember, postage is postage and taxes are taxes. People who pay postage are paying for a service. People who pay taxes are suckers.
I gotta ask.....how does “cheating on postage” come into the debate, other than through liberal application of scotch?
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