I heard one idea over this weekend. The idea was that the sequestration was intentionally designed to spread the pain out so that it wouldn’t hit any one group too hard to bear.
On the face of it, that is patently absurd. it hasn’t started yet and probably won’t in my office for another few weeks at least. When it does finally kick in, I will be told to take one unpaid leave day every week. That is a 20% pay cut.
Set aside arguments about how I was already overpaid and I’m a scummy government employee who should work in the private sector, etc. That may all be true but not relevant in this case.
1. But if the point is to spread the pain around, where are the welfare people who will be getting 20% less?
2. How about the 20% decline in food stamps?
3. Or the Medicare/medicade payments getting whacked by 20%. Not the doctors getting 20% less pay for their work, but the patients getting 20% fewer covered services?
4. How about the retirees and permanently disabled “can’t work because I am too fat” people getting a 20% cut in payments?
5. Why am I not hearing about the section 8 housing people being told that they will have to cover 20% of their own rent this month?
6. Why aren’t 20% of those people with Obamaphones being told where to turn them in?
7. Why isn’t PBS off the air for 20% of the time?
You see. This isn’t sharing the pain at all. This is the federal workforce being taxed because congress knows they can get away with it. The Serfs are angry at the faceless “government” and have been hearing for years about how we are all overpaid lay-abouts with gold plated benefits packages. The divide and conquer strategy works again. No one will take the side of the people they don’t like, even when those people are being unjustly treated.
Example 1: I also heard on the radio this weekend a discussion with a NYC police officer who was mouthing off about how the New New York state law against 10 round magazines was pushed through in the middle of the night and with no exemptions for police officers. When another caller mentioned that there is a federal law that makes LEOs and retired LEOs exempt from such laws, now dropped his condemnation of the acts. he didn’t care that everyone else who isn’t an LEO still has to comply with that law.
Example 2: Catholic church was a big supporter and promoter of Obamacare. Then when it passed they discovered that they were not exempt. So they are against it now. But if they were exempt, they would be fine watching it imposed on the rest of us.
A righteous man should be against injustice every time, even if the object of that injustice is unsympathetic.
I agree that the government spends too much money, has too much power, and is grosly inefficient even at those things it does that are properly within its limited powers. I also agree that the DoD is grossly bloated and much larger than any sane calculation of need would justify. But the sane approach to these problems would be to make the government smaller. Have fewer employees. Fewer duties to be performed. Fewer powers and authorities to inflict. The manner of this sequestration is just mindlessly stupid implementation that does not solve any problems.
Richard Fernandez and Megan McArdle just wrote about this. There is no more money left. Somebody has to give something up and nobody wants to. The political system just can’t handle this situation.
It’s just politics, and this time the guvvies are the ones left holding the bag. Nott fair, but there have been plenty of other political decisions that have been unfair to various groups. It’s easy to scapegoat government workers, I think.
In reality, after all the huffing and puffing, this was part of the compromise that was reached in the summer of ’11. The “deal” was that Obama would get his debt ceiling hike in exchange for an automatic sequester if the parties did not agree on budget cuts after the election. It was a big win for Obama in the short term (and in terms of being re-elected) in exchange for significant delerage on the back end, because as between the dems and the reps, the reps are just quite happy to let the sequestration happen — they’re the ones who are against spending anyway. The dems thought they’d be able to ram something through on the coat-tails of election goodwill, so they weren’t as worried about the fact that the stalemated outcome was engineered to favor the position of one of the parties and not the other one — and the basically lost the gamble. The reps have no incentive to budge on this now — it isn’t terribly unpopular, either. My guess is that it’s probably the new normal for a while. The WH miscalculated as to the long-term cost of the summer of ’11 deal, but they can’t be too bitter — they got what they wanted, in the political short-term, from the deal, certainly.
Of course, it’s you guys that end up paying the price. Again, not fair, but what happens to you guys is always driven by politics to some extent.
I agree. But even in DoD, there are better ways to do this without taking it out of payroll. And why are the uniformed employees exempt? People forget that they are government employees too. That point was totally lost on my O-6 boss. We could easily make up the entire amount by just not buying any new stuff this year, (not counting consumables). We could make up even more by cutting consumables like jet fuel being burned every day patrolling the skies that have no enemies in them. And fuel for ships to patrol far away seas. Just park all that shit and give the crews a week off (with pay).
The sad part is that no one is even suggesting real cuts. If you can’t cut the National endowments for the Arts this year, then we are really hopeless.
“There is no more money left. “
Heh. Tell that to Kerry…a point that I think escapes the larger public is how everything the government spends money on is a choice. Like $250M for our Egyptian Islamist friends. Or 2,700 MRAPs…by the Dept of Homeland Security. Or $4M for the Obama family to vacation in Hawaii.
So all those illegal aliens let out of jail, or all those civilians furloughed, just part of the effort to make the cuts as visible and painful for as many constituencies as possible.
Sorry Brother PH, you and the rest of the GSs are taking it in the shorts so that the POTUS and VPOTUS can take vacations and campaign on the taxpayer dime while you take one unpaid day per pay period…supposedly to make ends meet.
Let the shit go down. See how many regulations they are passing recently? 283,000 full time government employees to oversee them. The government is too rotted.
Two days per pay period. One day every week. 22 days by the end of sep.
I generally agree, I thought these were supposed to be “across the board” spending cuts, and it would be shared equally by anyone receiving tax money either by gov’t employment or entitlements.
I also think the cuts were too small. We have slowed the rate of decent into hell by a mere 1.4% of the total needed to close the deficit and pay off the debt by my calculations, but math is hard.
I agree. It’s not nearly enough. All the sequester did was let the politicians off the hook from talking about seriously cutting anything. Democrats don’t want cuts. Republicans are afraid to mention cutting even the most stupid programs. like the millions we are going to spend this year to teach Africans how to make indiginous and culturally sensitive pottery. That program is not taking a 20% cut.
“This is the federal workforce being taxed because congress knows they can get away with it.”
This has been going on for a while. They’ve been raiding FERS (pensions) to finance the deficit, after all.
i didn’t know there were any FERS funds. I thought they were like military retirement. Just another year to year expense as benefits become due with no actuarial plan to pay for it as it is incurred up front. But I did know that the TSP was being raided on a regular basis. Thus I reduced my contribution to just enough to trigger matching funds. I don’t want to lose a whole lot. And with sequestration, I may need to cut it back to zero to have enough to make ends meet.
Yes, they are like military retirement. They both have trust funds, but nobody bothers to put actual cash into them. Now they don’t even bother to pretend to finance the trust funds.
“Catholic church was a big supporter and promoter of Obamacare”
No. Some bishops and clergy were big supporters and promoters of Obamacare. They are not the Catholic church. Catholics do not elect them, do not agree with them, or choose what they do or say.
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/other/229313-vatican-catholic-church-committed-to-universal-healthcare-coverage-
Can you be more ignorant?
Please listen to what I say. I will use small words so it ismpossible for you to misunderstand. The catholic church does not consist of popes, cardinals, priests, or any other organizational group. THe Catholic Church consists of the faitful, and not it’s leaders. I have tried to explain this remarkably simple fact, but not one in a million seems to have the intellect required to comprehend it. The organizational arm of the church- from the Vatican on down- represents itself. Some are called to act as shepherds to Catholics, many are simply politicians. None of them have the authority to speak on the behalf of Catholicism; none.
As mentioned the sequestration doesn’t go far enough. And there are literally hundreds of programs that could/should be cut. And that includes things from the military of course. But can’t we just make it simple and put a dollar cap on how much can be spent? With inflation being a part of our monetary system, simply freezing spending at the current spending level would mean that in 4-5 years the budget would be balanced. Let Congress dither over who gets what percentage of that pie, just as long as that pie doesn’t increase.
I would also add that as far as cutting the military goes, perhaps we could get rid of a few dozen installations we have across the world. Perhaps even a 10% reduction of the estimated 900-1000 such “bases” we have (I would go much further of course, but thinking baby steps here.) And how about any research program in the military budget that is not, at least on the surface, for weapons/armor/tactics. Things like breast cancer research and studies about what goldfish can teach us about democracy should be cut out completely and immediately. This may not save the total amount each year, but it is a tremendous start.
For the non-military cuts, I really like Rand Paul’s idea of cutting foreign aid to countries that are openly defiant to the US. Again, I’d go farther, but this should be pretty simple. And how about cutting out military assistance to various rebel groups around the world? And the programs that are militarizing the police here in the U.S. Those need to be cut for numerous reasons.
I get it. It is my understanding that the Catholic church is a hierarchical organization. The popes and cardinals do indeed have authority here on earth to restructure the church and its teachings. At least they claim to. And since they make that claim without the flock leaving and opening up a new church next door, my claim is pretty self evident. I have been to a lot of non-Catholic churches that are packed full of former Catholics. They left for all sorts of reasons but the fact is that they voted with their feet. And they stopped calling themselves “Catholic”. A church is a club. The club members get to set the rules for the club. In the Catholic “club” the Pope, cardinals and bishops are setting the rules. Americans are notorious for not following those rules but that is another matter. If anyone can make a statement on behalf of “Catholics” it is the Vatican.
Otherwise, where are all the lay members denouncing it?
But if you with to continue in the claim that the Catholic church higher ups don’t have authority to speak for the “Catholic Church” then you are making a distinction that is too fine to matter to outsiders like me. Until Catholics refute this, they will all have to wear it. And voting patterns also back my claim that Catholics as well as the Catholic church are just fine with socialized health care and other forms of redistribution of wealth, just as long as it’s “fair”.
One, gov’t workers, since they earn more than TWICE of those of us in the private sector, so they can afford a 20% pay cut; even with it, they’ll STILL be better off than most of us. Proof in the pudding is that, according to a new survey/study, median income families are finding it increasingly difficult to afford a new car. Out of all the cities looked at, those in one city can still afford a brand new car. Guess what city it is? Washington, DC! Sorry, but I cannot feel pity for gov’t workers-not when they get the fat pay and benefits they do at OUR expense!
Secondly the sequester is a joke. Even with it, we’re STILL going to spend 15 billion MORE than last year-15 billion more! How is that a cut?! It’s not a cut as you or I would understand it, because more money is still being spent; the only difference is that not quite as much more is being spent. What’s at work is the dirty little secret in the District of Criminals: baseline budgeting.
Baseline budgeting means that the budget increases are compounded every year. What the politicians do is reduce the increase, then call it a ‘cut’. For example, next year’s budget (not that Washington has DONE one in the last few years) will have automatic increases of, say, 10%. Let’s say those increases are reduced to 5%. The politicians will then say, “See, we cut the budget!”. Unfortunately, it’s no cut at all; it’s merely a reduction in the rate of increase.
I guess you missed the part where I said govt workers being overpaid is not the issue here.
In every city there are people buying new cars this week. Envy does not help anyone make good fiscal choices.
Professor,
No, I didn’t miss the part about gov’t workers being overpaid isn’t the issue. You’re wrong; it is, and I will demonstrate why. [you cannot demonstrate why my selected topic is wrong. Nor can you tell me I am wrong for choosing to focus on the aspect I have chosen to focus on] Also, envy has nothing to do with my remarks, whereas fiscal responsibility does. Now, on to my points…
To address the last point first (i.e. WRT envy), if you were earning the same in the private sector, I’d say bravo, well done! You are obviously providing something to value to the company that provides its customers with value. The only thing I’d want to know is what you did, so I could perhaps emulate your success in the private sector. [Since the application of military force against other countries is th sole prerogative of teh National govenment, there is no private sector equivelent nor can there be. Maybe in the Libertopia you live in such a thing is possible as multiple free enterprise standing Armies, paid for by market prices, but not in this country]
Ah, but we’re not talking about the private sector, are we? We’re talking about the PUBLIC sector, or gov’t, correct? Where does government funding come from? Well, it comes from our taxes-duh. In a time when the median income in America has gone DOWN over the last few years; in a time when the average family’s costs (food, fuel, and utilities come to mind) have gone up; in a time when folks aren’t seeing raises (I went over three years before I got one); when a pension of any sort has gone the way of the Dodo in the private sector; riddle me this: WHY should gov’t employees enjoy pay and benefits that private sector workers can only DREAM of-especially when they PAY for those benefits? If those of us lucky enough to have jobs aren’t getting raises, then why should the government get one? Why should its employees get one? [because the taxpayers agreed to give them those pay and benefits. paying what you agree to pay is a conservative principle. I fully understand your envy at people who get paid more than you and who have better benefits than you. If you want to open the discussion that government employee pay and benefits are too high, that is a perfectly legitimate discussion to have, jut not on this topic.]
Also, for anyone not living in a cave, our nation has seen record debts and deficits in recent years; if nothing is done, then we will go the way of Greece, Argentina, and other nations that are basket cases. That means gov’t spending MUST BE CUT-end of story. [Agian, I completely agree. Thus, Congress should hold discussions about pay and benefits and pass legislation to reduce them or set them properly. But to promise one level and deliver another is irresponsible and a form of fraud. Every person who values justice should be against that sort of chicanery] That means we cannot afford everything on which we are spending money, so programs will have to go, as will some employees. While DoD employees perform a more necessary function than those assholes, EPA bureaucrats, the fact of the matter is that we have to stop spending money we do NOT have! If you are short of money, do you not look for places where you can reduce expenditures? Then why does the gov’t never, ever do this? Why are they exempt? [Got it. you are mad at your elected officials, so you are going to take it out on your fellow taxpayers who just happen to work for the government. Way to focus your anger there]
Finally (and this is the crux of my point), one thing that those inside the Beltway do not seem to remember is this: it is NOT your money! Repeat: the tax dollars which the District of Criminals take from us is NOT their money! Those of us in the private sector earned it, not some asshole in Washington, and they’d do well to remember that. [I agree. you earned it. Then the government took it from you and then I earned it. I have exactly the same emotional attachment to the money I earn as you do to yours. I have bills to pay and people who depend on me. Oh, and I also pay huge taxes with that money. The difference is that while your income may rise and fall with market fluctuations that you should expect, mine just took a nose dive due to a capricious act of my employer just so that they could avoid doing their jobs and making hard choices about what should properly be cut. My pay is being cut so that the national endowment for the Arts doesn't have to be. My pay is being cut so that the CDC can sponsor medical research in africa to see if circumcised men have less AIDS. My pay is being cut so that the low-IQ children of convicted felons can keep going to college and getting degrees that are not marketable.]
In closing, envy doesn’t have anything to do with my remarks; the fact that MY money is being taken to fund extravagance we cannot afford does. The fact of the matter is that the USA CANNOT continue running trillion dollar plus deficits for long without paying the price for such folly; debt reached and exceeded 100% of GDP, and that simply is not sustainable. Gov’t at all levels needs to be cut, and our budget needs to be balanced. That means that gov’t and its employees must be cut. The rest of us have had to do that; why is gov’t exempt? Thank you, and good night…
[My bottom line is that the government DOES have employees to perform its legitimate functions. It has to hire those employees from the larger labor pool and it has to set policies for paying them. Pay too little and it cannot get the right number of people or the right quality of people. It also has to obey all those labor laws it forces onto the "private sector" labor pool. Whether you agree or not on how many employees are enough or how much pay is enough, the government is no different thatn any other employer in that is has an obligation to pay the employees what it has promised. If it can no longer afford that, then it can renegotiate the promises and I have the choice to decide to look for employment elsewhere. Oh... but then there is that whole thing about the government being the exclusive consumer of my skills. But there was no renegotiation. On paper, I still get paid the same. But at the end of the month, 20% less. Private sector employers would get sued for that sort of thing].
MarkyMark
BTW, Obama is intentionally trying to make it so the ‘sequester’ causes pain to the people, e.g. cutting TSA so we have to wait longer at the airport. The sequester is a joke, because we’re STILL spending 15 billion more than we did last year! Sorry, but that’s not a cut the way I understand it…
As for DoD, I saw plenty of waste when I was in the Navy. We cannot seem to get good weapons systems at a price we can afford. Exhibit A is the F-22. While a replacement for the F-15 is needed; while the F-22 is a wonderful machine; the fact of the matter is we cannot AFFORD enough of them to make a difference. During WWII, Germany had the most advanced warplane of its day in the form of the Me262, the world’s first operational jet fighter. Unfortunately, they didn’t have enough of them, so numerous inferior P-51s were able to polish them off. The same will happen if the F-22 is ever used in war. Do we need something to replace the F-15? Yes, but the F-22 is not the answer. I could go on, but you get my point.
Of course I get your point. I fight that losing battle every day.
I have said twice now that my being overpaid is not the relevant topic of this post. If you insist on making that the topic get your own blog and post it there.
I get what you’re saying-finally. However, please realize that, at a visceral level, those of us in the private sector will find it hard to sympathize with gov’t workers-especially the useless parasites like those at the alphabet soup agencies like EPA. As a Navy vet, we had the NAVSEA guys come on board our ship, and they did things no one else could do for us; whether it was ship’s company, the civilian company that made the system in question, etc., the NAVSEA guys were awesome! [Rather than say all government employees are overpaid, make the credible argument that similar people doing a similar job in the private sector are the right metric. The Average private sector, which includes Wal-mart does not compare to the Average Federal govt employee that includes FBI agents, medical researchers and Army Generals. There is no private sector market for what I do. But I know I could make more as a constractor selling the same skills to the same consumer (US Govt). Does that mean I am actually underpaid?]
I do have a question though: how would a private sector employer be penalized for cutting employees’ pay or renegotiating the terms of their employment? It happens all the time, actually. Also, a company can declare bankruptcy, which will allow them to totally abrogate any and all contracts they may have; Continental Airlines did it under Frank Lorenzo back in the 1980s; it’s what GM SHOULD have done recently. [Bankruptcy is court supervised so there is an impartial judge deciding which creditors get paid and which contracts get honored. Nothing like that happened in the case of sequestration. Yes, renegotiations happen all the time, even in the Govt sector. But that is part of a process, not a sword of Damecles that strikes from the blue at the workforce when that is completely not required to make ends meet. If the Government goes into bankruptcy, or defaults on their pobligations (renegotiates them) or simply inflates the money then it still works out bad for everyone. There are plenty of other options that are not even being considered. Ending all foreign aid being one]
That also begs another question: while I agree that, when promises have been made that they should be honored, what is to be done when governments all across the nation are running short of money? Retired gov’t workers in Rhode Island saw their pensions disappear, and this will happen more and more. Remember, state & local governments cannot print money. Even though the federal gov’t can, sooner or later that bubble will burst also. What then? Either the terms of employment will have to be renegotiated because current promises cannot be met, or gov’t workers, like those in RI, will see their promises disappear totally. Something has to be done, or the coming fiscal collapse will hurt everybody-promises notwithstanding. [I agree. Eventually, the terms will have to be renegotiated. But that didn't happen. If the govt simply declares all those debts to be unenforcable (sucks to be me) then there will be plenty of misery to go around. But on the other hand, it will only take a small fraction of the taxes we pay to support the remaining government.]
One thing that gets local governments in fiscal trouble are mandatory state laws WRT education. My late mother was a retired teacher, and she said that NJ law TOLD her school system how many fat cat administrators (principals, vice principals, etc.) they had to have. The local school district couldn’t decide on its own how to best fill its needs; that was dictated to them by Trenton. Anyway, when a NJ talk show host was bashing teachers’ salaries and benefits, I called in and reminded him of this. He then told me of a small, South Jersey municipality that had TWENTY SIX administrators earning six figure salaries-twenty six! I then shot back that this was a MINIMUM of 2.6 million dollars a year added to that municipality’s budget; that’s assuming that they’re all earning $100k/year, of course; it was more than that, because some of those administrators would be earning more than $100k/year. It’s THAT kind of crap that’s getting a lot of cities and towns into trouble; the state & federal governments need to GTFO out of cities’ and towns’ business! These same state and federal governments will be all over the cities and towns when they get into the predictable, fiscal train wreck that awaits them-all courtesy of THEIR mandates!
Of course, there’s no way we can avoid fiscal collapse in America; we’re long past the point of no return. We have what, 16 plus TRILLION in debt-and that’s just on budget! When unfunded liabilities (Social Security, Medicare, etc.) are factored in, that’s an additional 90 TRILLION dollars! Can anyone wrap their arms around such an astronomical amount of money?! No! The thing that’s going to suck is living through the aftermath of this in our debauched, Jersey Shore culture; that is truly scary.
If nothing else, the impending fiscal train wreck gives us empirical evidence why universal suffrage is bad; this also gives us proof why women’s suffrage is bad, and when the 19th Amendment was passed, we, as a nation, signed our death warrant. Unfortunately, voting won’t be scaled back until it’s too late-and maybe not even then. Have a good day now… [sadly, I agree. hunker down. Bad times are coming. We won't be the first and we won't be the last. It is a hard lesson that nations have to re-experience for themselves every once in a while because watching it happen in Russia, Germany, Greece, all of South America, and Africa just doesn't drive the point home for some people. When you offer people free shit, the line forms quickly in some neighborhoods.]
What’s the old saying? The only thing we learn from history is that we DON’T learn from history…
the taxpayers agreed to give them those pay and benefits
Yeah sorta. What actually happened is that some lobbyist for the public sector employees in effect bribed a politician to give magnificent pay and benefits to public sector employees. As the politician got something (campaign contributions and votes) in exchange for nothing (giving away taxpayer money), he had no incentive not to give the lobbyist what he wanted. The taxpayers were not really represented in that transaction, and as a taxpayer I don’t feel that I truly consented to cough up for the primo pay and benefits of government employees. All I can do is vote against that politician, but since he or she is in a safe district there is zero chance he or she will not be reelected (this is true for me at the Federal, state, and local levels).
Incidentally, I am in the private sector, and from time to time we do have furloughs. It sucks but it is better than being laid off (not that we don’t also expect layoffs to happen this year).
You do realize that the term “safe district” means that it is populated by people who are exactly ideologically aligned with the incumbent? That is the way democratically elected legislatures work. Since we don’t have any of teh other sort I don’t know where you are going with this remark.
If you think that Government employees are overpaid, contact your representative and make a good case about that.Good Luck with that. But as I have said over and over, you need to make that case on a case by case basis, not on average. Average means nothing.
A “safe district” is one in which the incumbent is practically immune to being voted out of office. That is NOT the way democracy is supposed to work.
Apparently you think I, a conservative, must “agree with” (i.e., unreservedly and enthusiastically support) every form of liberal craziness simply because the legislature managed to enact it. That is far from the case. The legislature does many, many things that I detest. There is not a thing I can do about it, but the idea that I, as a taxpayer “agreed” to pay for these detestable things is absurd and I utterly reject it.
If liberal legislators do something that harms overwhelmingly liberal government employees, don’t hold your breath waiting for sympathy from conservatives, and don’t make yourself ridiculous arguing that conservatives “agreed to” and must support (as a conservative value, LMAO!) every insane handout the liberal legislature passes.
You lost me.