Yesterday I read that since 2006 federal government starting salaries have increased by approximately 15% while private sector jobs have seen an 8% decrease. IMO, many of these government employees, maybe even most, are paid big bucks to do jobs that simply don't need doing in the first place. They're glorified "make work" projects. To add insult to injury, 22% of the fed's 2.1 million workers are paid more than $100,000 per year. And once they get one of those cushy jobs, little short of raping a coworker on top of a desk will get them fired, and based on their lackluster job performance, they're well aware of that fact, too. Only .55%....that's point 55 percent....of their workforce were removed for cause last year. In fact, a federal worker is 13 times more likely to die of natural causes during his employment than get fired. And their perks and retirement plans are legendary. Many of them retire well before age 60 and are sitting on a tropical beach somewhere sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them while you and I are facing the probability of having our retirement age pushed back....again.
Why is it the least productive members of our society get the best benefits? Are we that stupid?
And it's not just federal government employees who get my dander up. Local and state workers are given ridiculous pay, perks, and retirement plans at the taxpayers expense, too. Now I learn that in 21 states employees can buy credit for a few extra years of work, known as "air time", thereby enhancing their retirement pay. As an example, it mentioned one guy in California who paid $75,000 for an extra 5 years work credit, which resulted in him getting an additional $13,000 a year in retirement pay for life. And he retired at age 55! My city gives new hires 21 sick-days off and 3 weeks vacation from day one. My wife working in the private sector doesn't get three weeks vacation until she's been there five years. And she's eligible for two weeks vacation only after she's been there for one year.
Why are workers in the private sector, the very ones who are footing the bill for everything from padded government payrolls to all our social programs, treated like second-class citizens compared to government workers?
Meanwhile, teachers are being laid off. Priorities? And in those areas where we need more government oversight, such as in financial auditing and banking regulation, they're no where to be seen. I'm sure they're there, but they're either dumb or lazy (based on the things they let slide through), or they've been called off by their elected-official paymasters.
Anyone remember William Proxmire, the Wisconsin Senator who put out his "most wasteful government program of the week"? Today Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is doing about the same. He's bringing to light things like funding a $600,000 study to find out why monkeys fling their feces at each other, or the obscene sum of taxpayer money allocated to set up a museum to document the history of video games. He points out that billions of dollars in wasteful spending all starts with many small (?) million dollar pork projects. Sort of like Sen. Everett Dirkson's famous "a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."
The good news is I think people are getting fed up with this the more they see. We simply can't afford the number of lavishly well-paid bureaucrats we have. We need to look at every government program we have, at every level, and determine if we really need it, and if not, shut it down. And all the people working on such programs should be given notice to start looking for a real job in the private sector. Short term hurt, long term gain. Starting now!
S
My favorite Proxmire report involved one of the Senator's trips to the Pentagon. He was walking down one of the endless corridors and he saw two soldiers guarding a door. When asked what they were guarding, both soldiers shook their heads and admitted they didn't know. Proxmire looked into it and discovered that the soldiers were there to warn people not to slip and fall because the floor had been recently waxed and polished. It turned out that the floor had been waxed and polished eighteen years earlier and the order had never been rescinded. The government had paid to have soldiers stand there for eighteen years, costing millions of dollars.
ReplyDelete