Here’s an excerpt from January 2, 2010 World Magazine:
…at least one sector of the job market has been thriving during the past 18 months-the one your tax dollars pay for.
The paper analyzed the 2 million federal workers tracked by the database of the Office of Personnel Management, which exclude the White House, Congress, the postal service, intelligence agencies and uniformed military personnel. Its finding: 19 percent of federal workers make more than $100,000 per year (before overtime and bonuses), compared to 14 percent when the recession began. The average federal worker’s pay is now $71,206 must higher than the average private sector worker’s pay of $40,331.
Don’t miss the salient points:
1. 380,000 federal workers make more than $100,000 per year. That’s a lot of money for a lot of people. If the average American worker across the country makes 45% less, then the cost of living nationwide mustn’t require 100 G’s a year. Maybe the nature of the job requires it? That ‘s a tough sell.
2. That number of six-figure people is a 5% increase since our economy tanked – since it tanked. It’s not so much the amount that’s egregious but the timing. Think about that: when many folks in many sectors of our economy were getting laid off, many federal workers were getting pay raises.
[PAUSE]
If there are fewer workers to pay taxes since they’ve gotten laid off, where did the pay raise money for the federal employees come from? The tax payers of tomorrow: deficit spending. At a time when things should be getting leaner and more efficient, Congress authorized more debt. How irresponsible is that?
[UN-PAUSE]
Do you remember all the screaming and hollering about corporate pay? No one seemed to squeak about public employee pay. There’s no automatic pay-raise machine that’s in some basement somewhere in D.C. No, people in Congress authorized this: a Congress dominated by a party that has always claimed to be for the little people. Must be the little government employee people…
3. Federal employees make 44% more on average than private sector employees. 44% more. These aren’t the ones in war-torn Iraq or Afghanistan, on the Hill or delivering our mail day-in and day-out, remember.
4. Where’s this money coming from? Taxpayers of today and taxpayer of tomorrow (deficit-spending). What if this number of six-figure people continues to rise, where is that money going to come from? Will Uncle Sam increase taxes on federal employees in order to pay them more? Hardly. Everyone will be taxed at higher levels to benefit just a few. Sounds like how health care legislation in the Senate was passed (just ask states how excited they are to subsidize health care costs in Nebraska and Louisiana and Connecticut).
It is really attractive to work for the federal government – that’s a big problem. If people want to work for the government more than for a private company, then eventually it will be harder to hire qualified employees for companies. (Technically trained workers might still work for private companies at lower pay – maybe.) But that wouldn’t be necessary if the government got into more private sector jobs like banking or automotive (oops, they already have). With fewer private employees, our ability to compete in the world will gradually diminish because skilled people will work for Uncle Sam since it pays so well. But what does Uncle Sam make? Nothing. Not yet anyway (banks and GM notwithstanding).
If more people work for Uncle Sam, then health care costs will go up because the pool of employees for plans will decrease. Isn’t that a premise behind “affordable health insurance” that there would be more people in more pools? So, if I continue to stay off the public dole, then my health care costs will go nowhere but up since there will eventually be fewer folks in my pool. Unless of course that every single American is in the pool, right? Sound familiar?
Make a quick comparison between heavily unionized companies and our federal government. Those unionized companies gradually became far less competitive in every industry (worldwide and here at home vs. non-unionized companies in the same markets). Their employee benefits (pay, pensions and insurance) often amounted to more than companies made in selling their products. (How many unionized companies have filed for bankruptcy?) Was the basis of their bankruptcy more to do with employees’ fat benefits or the lack of need for their product? Companies that made less money had to borrow more (sound familiar: Senate, House?) to pay their obligations. Eventually they didn’t make enough money to pay their operating expenses or their debt. So, they defaulted. What if our government (that has no income stream from any product but from us) increased in size or employee pay went through the roof and there weren’t enough tax payers to support it and no one will lend money to cover it?
- Can you imagine what would happen to our country?
