Free Republic

Data from the Rasmussen Consumer Index from the past seven days shows that a plurality of government workers think the economy is getting better while those who work in the private sector tend to have the opposite view. Those in the government sector are also more upbeat about the current state of the economy and their own personal finances.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new Internal Revenue Service unit set up to catch rich tax cheats hiding their wealth in complex business entities is rapidly taking shape with the hiring of hundreds of employees. The IRS high wealth unit, part of a broader effort to combat international tax evasion, is focusing on "the entire web of business entities controlled by a high wealth individual," IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman told a tax conference this week. Another IRS official told Reuters "hundreds" of people have already been hired to staff the new unit, including some from within the agency. "We have drawn...

Because they're more skilled than the private sector. Latest analysis from USA Today finds that the federal government has been creating a lot high paying jobs for itself. Yet, the excuse is that they're hiring more skilled people than in the past: USA Today: "There's no way to justify this to the American people. It's ridiculous," says Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a first-term lawmaker who is on the House's federal workforce subcommittee. Jessica Klement, government affairs director for the Federal Managers Association, says the federal workforce is highly paid because the government employs skilled people such as scientists, physicians and...

Fed Workers Enjoy Boom Time; Average Pay Now at $71K...

While the private sector has shed 6.9 million jobs since the beginning of the recession, state and local governments have expanded their payrolls and added 110,000 jobs, according to a report to be issued Thursday by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government. The report, based on an analysis of federal jobs data, found that state and local governments steadily added jobs for eight months after the recession began in December 2007, with their employment peaking last August. State and local governments have since lost 55,000 jobs, but from the beginning of the recession through last month they gained a...

LONG BEFORE THE AGE OF OBAMA, FEDERAL SPENDING became the panacea for social problems. Not content with new spending for new ideas, from high-speed passenger-rail services to bankruptcy bailouts, the Obama administration has revived spending for bad old ideas. Nothing better illustrates this folly than federally funded summer-job programs. Congress torpedoed such programs a decade ago, but President Barack Obama's team revived them in the stimulus package passed in February. The federal government is providing $1.2 billion to hire 125,000 teens and young adults this summer. Local and state governments are plowing in many millions of dollars more to hire...

What a difference a year makes. President-elect Barack Obama hasn’t even taken office and we’re experiencing climate change. Not the global warming variety that keeps bypassing the bone-chilling American winter. It’s change in D.C. Obama, who promised a government of “change” unveiled a switcheroo in his Jan. 2 radio address, also available on the Change.gov Web site. Obama is releasing details of his economic recovery plan that includes spending hundreds of billions of dollars. It also entails a major jobs component. “The No. 1 goal of my plan, which is to create 3 million new jobs, more than 80 percent...

Since the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, the FBI has been criticized for not having enough employees fluent in foreign languages and for not moving fast enough to upgrade its computer system. FBI Assistant Director John Raucci of the Human Resources division said the federal law enforcement agency is seeking to bring more people on board with skills in critical areas, especially language fluency and computer science. "We're also looking for professionals in a wide variety of fields who have a deep desire to help protect our nation from terrorists, spies, and others who wish us harm," Raucci said. He said...

Stimulus: Media are fawning over Obama's plan to create 2.5 million jobs in two years. But as usual on Democratic proposals, they aren't doing their homework. By historical standards, Obama's goal is quite modest.The president-elect has directed his economic team "to come up with an Economic Recovery Plan that will mean 2.5 million more jobs by January of 2011." And right on cue, the media have described the plan in glowing terms. The Washington Post called the goal "more expansive than anything proposed so far." Reuters described it as "bold" and "aggressive," and NPR called it "an ambitious economic stimulus...

Jared Lewis is an engaging 32-year-old with a liberal arts degree, a vast knowledge of weeds and a curious profession. Sometimes he calls himself a "grazing specialist." In fanciful moments, he'll introduce himself as a "modern-day pastoral nomad." In plain English, he'll acknowledge he's a goatherd. As a manager in a San Francisco company called Living Systems Land Management, Lewis oversees a crew of hungry but fickle employees: 600 sheep and 300 goats that are eating the weeds and grass near San Jose's airport radar equipment. It is the year of weed-snackers rather than weed-whackers. As a way of controlling...

House Subcommitee Chairman Danny Davis (D-IL) believes it's not sufficient that federal employment be open to felons. He's pushing for job set asides for felons as well: Davis said agencies should work with federally and locally funded rehabilitation programs to hire recently released felons as a way to help them reintegrate into society and reduce recidivism. Justice Department statistics show more than 50 percent of convicted felons offend again. Davis thinks giving some of them government jobs could reduce that number. “We are contradictory in our practices,” he said. “We talk redemption, but the way we treat individuals does not...

So after all those years of hearing the argument that extraordinarily generous pension, holiday, vacation, and health care benefits for government employees were justified because they made lower salaries than private sector workers, the premise turns out not to be true. The Citizens Budget Commission draws our attention to recently released 2004 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They show that in the New York City region, fringe benefits aside, state and local government employees actually earn 15% more on average than private sector employees - $28.26 an hour compared to $24.62 an hour. The attention raised by the...

Ron Smith's "Something to Say" CommentaryWeekdays at 6:50AM | rsmith@wbal.com | Ron Smith Show Page Ah, Those Government JobsMonday, July 07, 2003    Ron Smith's Something to Say A friend of mine, a money manager, has been on the beach, out of work, for some time now, victim of his firm’s acquisition of another investment outfit. I’ve been thinking about his situation and how it applies to the bigger picture. You know how those things work in the private, for-profit sector: a worker dutifully performs for a number of years, his income rises considerably; so much so that eventually he becomes...

When I graduated from college my father gave me the following piece of advice, one of the very few he gave me that I actually followed: "Get a government job." Dad himself had had a government job once. It had not lasted long, and he mislaid it under mysterious circumstances, returning to the private sphere, where, after splashing about in an uncoordinated way for a while, he sank like a stone. By the time I left high school the family was so poor we qualified for full government funding of my university career. There were application forms to fill...

Federal regulators have no set requirements for checking backgrounds of nuclear plant security employees, and the Sept. 11 hijackers could have qualified to work as security guards, according to a report released Monday by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. The report also says most plants could not withstand a plane crash. Markey, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has been a critic of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for years. After the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and the Pentagon, he demanded that the agency explain its security requirements for plant operators, including employee screening ad...