Posted on 12/24/2016 10:29:05 AM PST by boycott
The federal government employs 2.1 million civilian workers in hundreds of agencies at offices across the nation.1 The federal workforce imposes a substantial burden on America's taxpayers. In 2016 wages and benefits for executive branch civilian workers cost $267 billion.2
Since the 1990s, federal workers have enjoyed faster compensation growth than private-sector workers. In 2015 federal workers earned 76 percent more, on average, than private-sector workers.3 Federal workers earned 42 percent more, on average, than state and local government workers.4 The federal government has become an elite island of secure and high-paid employment, separated from the ocean of average Americans competing in the economy.
Spurred by the large budget deficits of recent years, policymakers have trimmed the growth in federal wages. In particular, they imposed a partial freeze on federal wages from 2011 to 2013, which saved billions of dollars. To find further savings, policymakers should turn their attention to the generous benefit packages received by federal workers. They should also reduce the overall size of the federal workforce by terminating low-value programs.
(Excerpt) Read more at downsizinggovernment.org ...
Like we need 2 thirds of them. Fire them. Let the workers keep the money they earn.
Force the Feds to give all lands they currently hold in the west back to the states, & then terminate every agency that exists to ‘manage’ these lands. Get rid of Energy, Education & Commerce, too. Then apply the savings to the debt, or maybe increase pay for our military, the lowest rungs of which are really underpaid!
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No doubt a great start!
I thought 20% were going to quit if Trump won.
Obama signed the bill today with a 2.3% pay raise in it.
Thank you for caring for the troops.
“I took early retirement when first eligible and available. Too much diversity nonsense.”
Me, too. 55 and out. Life is much calmer now.
drain the swamp
While everyone is soooooo cavalier about “govt employees” as well as “ End the VA now! fire everyone and let the veterans go to wherever they want with a voucher”-—lets just stop the armchair brilliant quarterbacking.
1) there are many very hardworking front-line employees at the VA, doctors, social workers, nurses, therapists who do NOT need a pay cut or less benefits.
2) The VA has a voucher system now..one of the problems is that a) the rate of payment for private providers is often way less than private ins.
b) The wait times in the private sector can often even be longer than at the VA, cause there are just not enough medical providers in the community (ie, shortage of psychiatrists, addiction providers.)
Yes, a LOT of Federal employees ( especially the top tier) need to go, incompetent people need to go....but lets be rational and selective how we do this.
Federal acquisition rules are the most inefficient creations ever designed. I would guess that about 1/2 of the job of a DoD acquisition professional’s job is figuring out how to navigate the damn maze they make them go through. Acquisition reform is badly needed! If I were to guess, I would so items cost 75-80% higher than they need to due to the silly acquisition rules.
No federal employee need whine about his wages, but federal civil service salaries, which at the very tippy top are $180K, are not supporting the mutli-million dollar housing prices these days in D.C. That is all lawyers, lobbyists, and crony capitalism.
And federal salaries are a tiny fraction of the budgets of most agencies.
The problem is not that qualified federal workers are overpaid but that the system has become overloaded with unqualified workers who do nothing except pass the pork along to the crony capitalists brought in under Al Gore's reinventing government initiative.
There are a lot of hard working Federal DoD employees who actually want to get a good job for our soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen. Unfortunately, you have about 10-20% that don’t do work. Some are “protected” races, “fluid gender” and yes, even some are vets. (I know a vet who claims PTSD to get out of work — this person never saw combat or was even deployed to a hostile AoR!)
If you have a good employee, that employee is now “punished by performance” and forced to keep doing the jobs that the slackers won’t do. A lot could be accomplished by reforming the rules to make it easier to get rid of the dead wood.
If the first line supervisors could just could fire the 15% worst ones, that would send a positive message to the rest of the workforce and even increase morale among the highest performers.
I maintain that most government programs are FAR from “low value” but actually are of LESS THAN ZERO value, being in fact counterproductive when measured by any rational standard. The education department for instance would have to be dramatically improved to reach very low value status.
Ayn Rand explained long ago that federal regulatory agencies wind up becoming the tool of the big businesses that are supposedly being regulated. Regulations keep small operators from being able to compete with the big boys.
Reference bump
401's only.....
granting lifetime pensions after 20 yrs is INSANITY especially since people live so long nowadays....
it must stop....
“GS-13’s I work with work hard too...”
Do they really? I grew up on the farm and have worked really hard for much of my life. I find it difficult to imagine a government employee doing anything I would call working hard.
not one tear for military retirees....I say that as a person’s who’s spouse gets a guard pension....and who’s family is heavy with military exp...
I agree and I shouldn’t put them all together.
Questions:
- Why should the average federal worker make the same as the average person in the private sector?
in order to have capable people and a functioning government
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