20% slash to federal workers. Great start.
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Awwwwww, you mean your white collar welfare check is in jeopardy? Awwwww, maybe you'll get to actually earn a living in a competitive market now.
Why not? We are living in a bizarro world now. Let the new jobs President start out by firing a few million workers with good jobs and benefits. I'm sure the base will approve....until their airplane runs into another, oil companies pollute their drinking water, e coli becomes part of their food, terrorists make it through security, their roads deteriorate, their federal crimes don't get investigated.....
1. Put a hold on new hires.
2. Cut the retirement benefits for new employees.
3. Increase the number of years to get a pension.
4.Make federal employees all have ACA with no premium supports.
1. Some agencies are already understaffed. On average, there is a 10% attrition rate.
2. You won't attract qualified candidates to do the job.
3. They are already doing that on a graduated basis.
4. Feds already had appropriate health insurance before the ACA, that met and exceeded minimum standards for coverage and paid healthy premiums.
I love it when some Republicans get on their soap box about federal employees being overpaid, or lazy, or not necessary, and they have no f'ucking clue what they are talking about and they prove it by the stupid things they say. Just like that member of Congress that they got on video tape when the Republicans shut down the government in October 2013.
I think it really depends on the agency. I work day in and day out with a Federal Agency and I will say that their staff is top notch, efficient, and professional. Cutting staff without cutting their mission would be idiotic.
1.Move the employees out of the EPA to make them productive employees.
2.Move all new federal jobs to Mississippi. Dollar goes further there.
3.Do it faster.
Sometimes when we deal with state and local government employees, we can develop a bias. Over my 30 plus year career I have worked in state government, private sector (3 companies including a global financial services firm -20 plus years in private) and a government sponsored agency. Today I work hand in hand with a federal agency. Other than my year in state government where I honestly felt that the work produced and the workforce was subpar, I cannot tell the difference between the employees of most private companies and federal agencies.
I will say this, there is fat in government. But often it is the result of regulation and bloat vs the quality of the employees.
Great points. 20 years ago everyone criticized the federal government because the work produced was substandard. Now that some agencies actually compete for excellent talent, salaries and benefits are too high..... It never ends with some of these folks.
You need to do a little research before you post any more on this topic. Seriously.
What makes you think a Fed couldn't make a living in a competitive market? Most of the Federal work force is better educated, better trained, more experienced, and just as dedicated as the average worker.
I will compare one government funded job and two private companies I have worked for, without naming them.
I worked for a mental health service company that was a non-profit entirely funded by state and federal funds. Every manager's top priority was protecting their budget and increasing it if at all possible. No want went by without being granted.
The first private company, a liberal leaning company, European decent, headquarters in a foreign country... during the great recession they were losing money hand over fist. It was very bloated, and everyone was well versed in how to protect their little kingdoms. This reminds me of government.
The latter, the one I moved to from the first, is run much more conservatively, even though it's a larger company. Domestic headquarters. My first fiscal update with the company, the officers were depressed. I'm thinking I went from the frying pan to the fire. They were depressed that they were only making 7% increase in profit when their plan called for 9%. We run very lean. Many things we think we need to get done just don't. We prioritize the important projects first, and not so important fall by the wayside. I have been re-org'd 80% of the years I have been here. I have certain periods of time where 50 hours just doesn't cut it, and that's fine, as long as it's not all the time. This is my company for life, if they'll have me. Even in IT and being well-paid, I do not have to worry about recessions, they are recession-proof.
Don't tell me government and government-funded jobs are similar to well run private companies.
Agreed. I work closely with USFWS and USGS folks who are the best in the world in their respective fields and work their arses off.
First of all I was clear that my work in state government was different from my working with Federal agencies. I was the head internal auditor for a state agency in Virginia for 13 months. I had two employees on my team that didn't produce a single piece of anything for the 13 months I was there. One was 63 and about to "retire" so I couldn't touch her. The second was diagnosed with a mental condition that caused migraines so severe she couldn't work but she go shopping at lunch and play in the local symphony. I couldn't touch her either. I got fed up and left. That is my experience with state government. But to be fair, while those two were useless, they were paid peanuts. They were probably making 30-40 less than qualified folks in their field in the private world. But there was no profit motive. To your point, all that mattered was that the budget was re-allocated for the next year. Few really cared about production.
I have managed teams as big as 16 and been responsible for hiring, firing, and budgets at 4 separate banks from large community banks to top 20 globally. If staff didn't produce, I fired them or moved them on. I hired the best and brightest my budget allowed, On two occasions I had to reduce staff due to cost-cutting. I was in this space for more than 20 years. I understand the dynamics well.
Now I work for a GSE or quasi-government agency and I can tell you that the workforce dynamic is very similar to that of private industry. Just in my unit, we have economist with doctorate degrees, folks with masters degrees in math, CPAs, former CFOs of publicly traded firms, certified IT specialists, and many others that landed here for various different reasons. Many of us work sick numbers of hours and if you don't perform, you are gone. We downsize too periodically. It is the same with my counterparts that are actually working for the federal government. They too work long hours. They are dedicated and professional. I deal with about 35 people on a regular basis and all are professionals that would succeed in most companies.....
Yes, well, partially. I have very little respect for my Gov't counterparts in my industry. Most severely underperform and I might lose my mind the next time we have a meeting cut short because someone from the Gov't side has to call it a day because they are "at their 40"
I work with folks from 3 states agencies and the US Treasury. I have only ever heard that from workers from one state....thankfully.
Subcontract out all work non essential Federal employees do. That leaves the Military, Justice Department, (Courts) and Congress. Everything else can be devolved out of Washington D.C. to be done faster, better, cheaper in the private sector...even Tax collections. States already collect sales taxes at the point of sale, that's enough to run essential functions of the Federal Government on a 2% Federal excise sales tax added to local sales taxes along with elimination of the IRS as well as the tax code.
If you turn over all non essential functions of Uncle Sam to the private sector you'd save enough in waste alone to not only balance our yearly operating budgets, but give the the rest of the Federal employees substantial pay increases and actually begin to pay off our staggering debt and unfunded legacy obligations.
Can you link a study that shows this? Intuitively I think you may be correct but I have no real clue here.
countryroads89 can you name one thing ANY Federal employee does (besides voting on Legislation) that cannot be done in the private sector?
Anything? (you can also include the Military, FBI, CIA, or any other agency you wish) What is done by Federal workers that similar services also could not be delivered & probably more effectively through the Private sector?
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Honestly I haven't taken the time to study actuarial tables on it, but I could point to recommendations made by the Grace commission on cost reductions sponsored by Reagan. Many of their recommendations were based on massive privatization of non essential Federal services.
I've also seen studies by Americans for Tax reform that suggest devolving certain agencies like FDA, FAA, EPA, and OSHA into private non profits chartered to oversee public safety, but without the heavy bureaucratic infrastructures required just to fund daily operations.
I'm sure if I endeavored to find case studies, there are plenty out there which go beyond what I've mentioned here off the top of my head...but the concept to me makes much more sense in these times of deficit spending.
We need to be seriously looking at anything we can do cheaper in the Private sector rather than by bloated inefficient bureaucracies.
Before we do any of that, lets determine what is essential. For example, payment systems in the US are both owned/performed privately and through the Federal Reserve System. The redundancy of two competing systems (one private and one govt sponsored) seems appropriate due to the risk of failure of either. Are we as an economy willing to rely solely on a third party for this or any critical function?
You may feel that the EPA needs to go. But I think for all of us old enough to remember, Lake Erie once burned and the Ohio River was a cesspool. Do we really want to go back to that?
Cheaper is not always better. But yes, there is too much inefficiency in our current govt agencies.
True, but when you don't have money to pay your bills, cheaper is your only option. Unless you're willing to just do without or eliminate. We could do a lot of that too btw.
Agreed. I'd bet at least 40% of "non essential" services could be eliminated and no one would notice.
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Cheaper might be better for the US Postal Service but I surely wouldn't want the USDA to go cheap....more efficient YES....cheap NO
I think as a whole we clean up our messes far better than any industrialized nation in the world. In fact the EPA doesn't do any of the cleanups...they just order the private companies to do it. The one time I remember recently when the Army Corps of engineers was entrusted to protect the environment with direct supervision from the EPA....there was a massive flood...(along the Colorado River) that wiped out whole estuaries and Wildlife along the way among other boondoggles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Corps_of_Engineers_civil_works_controversies
People hunt all the time, and eat safe meat. Folks aren't going to knowingly try to poison themselves. Supermarkets, or privately certified meat inspectors can check the safety of beef (just like UL certifies most electrical appliances). It can be done, it doesn't have to be run only by Uncle Sam.
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The Federal reserve essentially guarantees a stable currency and/or money supply. I'm not convinced they do such a great job of either, but in the attempts to assure both I'd be willing to label that an "essential" function. It still could be managed or run by private investment houses that simply report to the U.S. Treasury to certify the money supply.
We just can't have folks printing their own currency. But in some cases I'm not opposed to a barter economy...or "in-kind" services in exchange for straight cash transactions.
Can you imagine the USPS having to deliver our e-mails and/or personal messages (ie: Twitter, IM, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook etc) my God imagine if there were no e-mail, online communications, or the only way we could communicate was by snail mail or telephone?
Ugh.