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Hey Mark: This will make your blood boil.
Topic Started: Jan 4 2010, 12:49 AM (259 Views)
ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Will the American People Finally Revolt?

Quote:
 
Between December 2007 and June 2009, USA Today reported December 10, the number of federal employees earning more than $100,000 annually increased 46 percent to 382,758. Those making more than $150,000 rose 119 percent to 66,538. Only one Transportation Department employee scored more than $170,000 as the recession began. By last June, that number had soared to 1,690.


FFS
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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jon-nyc
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Cheers
Wow.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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Klaus
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HOLY CARP!!!
Is the salary of federal employees purely a matter of negotiation, or is there some kind of salary scale? Over here we have a more or less fixed salary scale for public employees, and it goes up (or down) more or less the same as in every other sector.

Are there any particular reasons for these figures?
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
I don't care WHAT they pay. I could not abide working in government.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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1hp
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Fulla-Carp

Wait.......no mention of number of days of vacation and holidays????

There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and................
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
Mikhailoh
Jan 4 2010, 02:07 AM
I don't care WHAT they pay. I could not abide working in government.
What're you talking about? One of the easiest gigs there is. Plenty of holidays and leave, good benefits, and guaranteed pay raises over time (pretty ridiculous ones if this is any indication.)
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Next time any of the liberals here pose the question "so where would *you* cut the budget?" here is a place to start.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Axtremus
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HOLY CARP!!!
The the USA Today report, where ivorythumper's linked article got their date from:
Quote:
 
Jessica Klement, government affairs director for the Federal Managers Association, says the federal workforce is highly paid because the government employs skilled people such as scientists, physicians and lawyers. She says federal employees make 26% less than private workers for comparable jobs.

...

Key reasons for the boom in six-figure salaries:

• Pay hikes. Then-president Bush recommended — and Congress approved — across-the-board raises of 3% in January 2008 and 3.9% in January 2009. President Obama has recommended 2% pay raises in January 2010, the smallest since 1975. Most federal workers also get longevity pay hikes — called steps — that average 1.5% per year.

(Ax notes: See how Obama is trying to correct another one of Bush's over-spending, again?)

•New pay system. Congress created a new National Security Pay Scale for the Defense Department to reward merit, in addition to the across-the-board increases. The merit raises, which started in January 2008, were larger than expected and rewarded high-ranking employees. In October, Congress voted to end the new pay scale by 2012.

(Ax notes: Well, you guys want to pay the military more, don't you? Now you're complaining?)

• Paycaps eased. Many top civil servants are prohibited from making more than an agency's leader. But if Congress lifts the boss' salary, others get raises, too. When the Federal Aviation Administration chief's salary rose, nearly 1,700 employees' had their salaries lifted above $170,000, too.

(Ax notes: Running the FAA is no small feat. What's wrong with people running the FAA commanding high salaries?)

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-12-10-federal-pay-salaries_N.htm


In Keynesian sense, it's entirely appropriate for the state to increase spending when the private sector is contracting. Hiring more federal employees and paying them more is economically stimulative, and other countries have employed this method of economic stimulation before. (Though as noted above, Obama is running counter to this thinking seeing that he has recommended the smallest pay raises for federal employees since 1975, heck Obama has recommended pay raises that's only half as big as Bush 43's last recommendation.)

Also, I don't see why it's automatically bad if federal government employees make a lot of money. As it is, they are not making that much -- when comparing apples to apples (i.e., comparing government employees and private sector employees doing "similar jobs"), government employees make 26% less. (Though I doubt this 26% figure takes into account the value of government pension plans.)

I want competent people working for the government, and it's only fair that competent people be paid well, commensurate with their competence. I have no inherent objection to some one making a lot of money just because he works for the government.

If you criticize government employees for incompetence or poor work ethics, I can see reason to support you. If you criticize government employees solely for "making too much," that just about as bad as any populist criticizing business leaders or other high-achieving individuals solely for "making too much."
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Phlebas
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Bull-Carp
It's so comforting to know that there are that many people working for the federal government who are competent enough to earn those high salaries.
Random FML: Today, I was fired by my boss in front of my coworkers. It would have been nice if I could have left the building before they started celebrating. FML

The founding of the bulk of the world's nation states post 1914 is based on self-defined nationalisms. The bulk of those national movements involve territory that was ethnically mixed. The foundation of many of those nation states involved population movements in the aftermath. When the only one that is repeatedly held up as unjust and unjustifiable is the Zionist project, the term anti-semitism may very well be appropriate. - P*D


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