Brad: Great ideas. When you run for office, you got my vote.

I do not know the history of how government unions came to be, but I deplore them. Who are they defending those employees from? Their neighbors who pay their salaries and their benefits?
The days of fat-cat evil Capitalists oppressing workers are long…

The article you cite was interesting, but it presented the numbers in a misleading fashion.

Most importantly, sometimes it included the military, and sometimes it only discussed civilians.

Your focus seems to be on civilians. It said the total civilian work force for the Federal government was 1.2 million in 2009, and 1.28 million in 2010. That increase would appear to be the 80,000 census workers. So there does not appear to have been any significant increase.

Thanks,

Ron

Good analysis. I’m a federal worker (and a veteran) as are about 25% of the 2.2 million federal workers. Just to state it up front so you know I have a selfish interest in this…

I am not familiar with how each state is doing their plans but in Louisiana 80% sounds about right. However the salaries are considerably lower than the federal rates. For example a teacher who works 30 years in Louisiana collects about 25K a year for life and the average annual pay for teachers is 40K.

To try to answer a couple of your questions I’d say more is bad - from the federal side we need badly to go back to numbers of the 1980’s. There are a couple of ways to do this: (1) first cut the Senior Executive Service in half (political appts with no union protection) (2) change regulations so that required grade for levels of responsibility is lowered by one grade (3) Put a five year plan (sounds communist I know) in place that reduces the number of federal positions by at least a third across all departments (4) plan for a second five year look that cuts another 25% of positions

This could be done through attrition and some reorganizations and would force the politicians to decide which departments were more necessary if the cuts were too much.
There is a fifth step which although I wouldn’t like it might be helpful and that would be to cap ALL federal/state entitlements for five years with no Cost of living increases. But not pay cuts - over five years the private sector averages would rise and govt wages stay static. But I would only advocate this one if all entitlements (social security, medicare, welfare, etc.) were frozen for the same five year period.

No good answer as to how to stop the unions from doing what they do but if the number of workers is reduced the amount of money they have to peddle influence would drop.

“Are these hugely expensive pension plans necessary to get and keep good employees?” I would say they are not needed but think those are more at the state levels (have seen some in Ca mentioned in other stories). The fed pension bases its retirement on the average of the last three years of service. Someone who does 30 years federal civil service and makes 65K the last three years (which is usually the same unless they promote to a different grade) will get roughly 25K a year the rest of their life. They do match up to 5% for 401K plans which is not counted in the retirement equation. But 80% for federal? just cannot find an example and that is why I think that is for some states.

The politician.. check that… leader who can successfully get the majority of Americans on board that some shared sacrifices are needed to get the deficit and entitlement spending and future growth under control will be the one who can get us out of the mess we are in. Sacrifice is a dirty word and needs to be explained in terms such as you talked about with Rep Ryan’s suggestions about some entitlement reform.

To control the state levels we need leadership that refuses to bail out any states — let the state citizens make the choices of what should and should not be budgeted for.

As to Health Care, I’d love to have whatever Congress gets, but we know that won’t happen, so why not put everyone into the same pool. Sure Unions have negotiated all kinds of nice perks there, and I guess that is what they do, but honestly, no one in government is about to change ANYTHING in health care until they feel the same pain (or see it) as the rest of us.

Public Service is something I would not want to be in, let’s face it most people who come into a government office do so to complain more than they do to congratulate. I give some credit to the people in the office, make sure I am polite and do my homework, and I have found most encounters have been ok. Some offices are where hacks go, and unless you can make the hiring process more transparent that won’t change, so we will continue to get useless dorks who don’t know how to do anyone’s job never mind whatever one they are shoved into.

A government job doesn’t need to be a honeypot to be competitive and get people to do the job, most people have such a negative view on those who work in the public sector anyway that anyone who wants to do it should probably have their head examined.

No. You are not distinguishing between public employment and public service. The guy who picks up your trash? He’s not doing it because its a selfless way to honor and serve the community — he’s doing it because it’s a job. He’d be doing it if the trash collection was run by GloboTrash LLC just as likely as he would be doing it if his paycheck is signed Springfield Municipal Sanitation.

“Already, the seams are bursting as some towns have been forced into insolvency as a result of public employee pension and health care plans.”

Well clearly the problem is with the workers trying to get their healthcare needs met, and not with the health insurance companies charging too much. Stupid employees. Thank god we don’t want National Health care! This is America, and in America you should be rewarded for working hard. If you aren’t lazy, your health care insurance is covered by your job. OhMiGod! Look at these workers getting health insurance from their employer! Bastards.

I got that bit of conservative logic about right?

They are getting tax payer funded gold plated, above and beyond anything available to the people who are paying their salaries health insurance. It doesn’t matter how much it costs because the taxpayer is paying for it, right? Do I have that bit of liberal logic about right?

And their defined contribution pension funds are totally and completely unecessary - breathtaking in their outright robbery of the taxpayer. Imagine having a pension where you received 80% of the salary you made for the last three years - and saw your salary triple over that time because of rules written in by powerful, out of control unions to guarantee that your pension did not reflect the first 20 years you were vested but rather the artificially inflated amount you got because politicians are terrified of your union?

A garbage collector is in service to the people as any other public employee is (most garbage is picked up by private companies like Waste Management now). Anyone who receives a salary courtesy of the taxpayer is in public service - despite your stupid, cynical, and ridiculous attempt to separate public employees from “public service.” Taxpayers have every right to demand that their employees are not treated better than the taxpayers themselves.

You fail to address any of the questions I posed - all perfectly legitimate and absolutely vital to the future of this country - unless, as I suspect you might - want a state where government is the final arbiter of everything and “public employees” becomes a meaningless designation because we all will be working for the government.

ed.