How large is our Government
- Thread starter audioguy
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Doc, I think the reason why we agree on so many of these points is because we're talking about getting things done instead of quipping on ideology. If we're to get anything done, if America is to avoid a slow decline, we're going to have to learn to step in from the ideological poles, find the things that will work and work on the things that will make a difference. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening, because to get away from the polarizing rhetoric and move toward the political will to act, we will need, first, to do some even more difficult things that haven't entered this conversation because they are not directly related to economics:
1) Restore the Equal Time Rule
2) Remove private money from public elections
1) It was a great rule. We were wrong to remove it and the evidence of that is on TVs and radios 24 hours a day in America: As long as our media continues to veer further and further away from news reporting and deeper into highly polarized and sensationalized opinion "journalism" (and really, left or right, the quotes are required to call attention to the inappropriate use of that word), we, the electorate, will continue to reward extremism in the primaries and demand a sudden, duplicitous run to the center in the general elections. And we will, as a result, limit our choices to those for whom the truth is a pretty fungible concept.
2) As long as our public servants continue to be wholly-owned subsidiaries of any group wealthy enough to finance their campaigns, whether it's the AFLCIO or Lockheed, our representative democracy will represent special interests, not the electorate.
And there, I lose a lot of hope, because I believe these would be even harder to accomplish than entitlement reform.
Tim
Remember that certain job descriptions may not follow the "average" compensation distribution, and the private sector job may pay more. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of direct pay and "indirect" benefits that comprise the earnings in each sector by job type.
Lee
Lee
Of course the only meaningful numbers would compare like jobs, some of which would not be possible because governments don't run convenience stores or hire people to pick apples. They do have janitors and maintenance people though, and I consider it a good thing that they pay them a living wage. Now, if we can compare professionals doing the same job for govt. agencies vs. the private sector, we'll have some numbers that mean something.
Tim
I don't have much of ideology. Whatever works is fine with me. Most of the people i still work with in the govt make less than 123k. The only ones I know that made that much were executives. That is not much lower than a house rep. What do they make 170k? Of course, they get free insider information (or maybe it is not free). I will have to look up the current GS scale.
Went to factcheck.org
http://factcheck.org/2010/12/are-federal-workers-overpaid/
I don’t believe the government “average* salary figures. Remember the old adage: “Believe half of what you read and none of what you hear.” If you look at the Federal General Schedule (GS) pay scale, you will see that it goes from GS-1 to GS/GM-15. There are some demo pay plans out there, but they are still based around the GS pay scale. There is also a small group of people in the SES (Senior Executive Service) pay scale, but that elite group is too small to affect the overall average to be what is stated in the video. GS-1 is the bottom of the pay scale and of course, that makes GS/GM-15 the top end of the scale. In order to have an average salary across the government of $123K, that would mean the average government employee is a GS-14 which is simply not true.
That figure refers to total compensation, not just salary. Add in benefits, insurance, pension, etc.
Lee
Lee
You know the (local) government is too big when your annual property tax bill exceeds your gross income. 
Wow. Days off with pay. Isn’t that called vacation days Tom? The government has no such thing called personal days. You either take annual leave or sick leave. There are no “baby days” off either. Women have to use their vacation time. Comp time is hours you accrue in lieu of overtime. You get to make a choice; if you work over 40 hours a week, your extra time can be either overtime or comp time. As far as raises go, if you have any type of decent job and you perform well, don’t you periodically get raises??
You need better sources for you income figures, Tom, they're way off. As for the rest of it, are you trying to make the case that government employees have too much or the rest of us have been screwed? I remember well when corporate America sold its employees on killing off the pensions that had been sold to them, as a part of their compensation, not given to them as some sweet extra they'd get in the end if it all worked out, and moved all the money to 401k plans. The 401ks, we were told, would do much better than pensions because the markets always out-perform fixed income funds over the long haul.
Two things went seriously wrong - 1) Many of those 401Ks required that the majority of the funds, or at least the matching funds, be invested in the stock of the employing company. So much of that money never went into the markets at all. 2) Timing. Sure, historically the markets out-perform fixed funds. But if the markets happen to be going through a serious down cycle at the wrong time in your career cycle, you've got a problem, because a huge chunk of your retirement fund is invested in one company and cannot be taken out of the market as you get close to needing income instead of making investments. If that one company tanks, or even if it is just drug down by a down market at the wrong time, your 401k takes a huge hit and you would have been much better off with the old pension.
Millions of people find themselves in that position right now. Are they jealous of government and union workers who still have pensions? Yep. It's easier to think those people are fat and have it easy than it is to think we were dumb and got taken. But those workers aren't taking anything away from us. Back in the early 90s they collectively bargained to keep what they had earned while our corporate bosses were taking all of our retirement money, investing it in themselves, and telling us it was in our best interests.
And we bought it.
Small biz? A whole other story. Starting a business is the opportunity to make more money than you could ever make on salary. Or not.
Tim
Two things went seriously wrong - 1) Many of those 401Ks required that the majority of the funds, or at least the matching funds, be invested in the stock of the employing company. So much of that money never went into the markets at all. 2) Timing. Sure, historically the markets out-perform fixed funds. But if the markets happen to be going through a serious down cycle at the wrong time in your career cycle, you've got a problem, because a huge chunk of your retirement fund is invested in one company and cannot be taken out of the market as you get close to needing income instead of making investments. If that one company tanks, or even if it is just drug down by a down market at the wrong time, your 401k takes a huge hit and you would have been much better off with the old pension.
Millions of people find themselves in that position right now. Are they jealous of government and union workers who still have pensions? Yep. It's easier to think those people are fat and have it easy than it is to think we were dumb and got taken. But those workers aren't taking anything away from us. Back in the early 90s they collectively bargained to keep what they had earned while our corporate bosses were taking all of our retirement money, investing it in themselves, and telling us it was in our best interests.
And we bought it.
Small biz? A whole other story. Starting a business is the opportunity to make more money than you could ever make on salary. Or not.
Tim
Tom-If you want to be up on the latest with regards to federal employment, go to www.opm.gov and you can find answers to all of your questions. As for your last question, annual leave and vacation days are one and the same. Are you mixing holidays in with annual leave?
As for retirement, civil service changed the retirement system in the late 1980s. New people hired after the introduction of the replacement retirement system (FERS) no longer fall under CSRS.
As for retirement, civil service changed the retirement system in the late 1980s. New people hired after the introduction of the replacement retirement system (FERS) no longer fall under CSRS.
Tom-I’m amazed at your logic. Now you’re picking on military pay?? Let me tell you something since you obviously never served in the military, there is no such thing as a guaranteed holiday in the military. You are considered on duty/on call 24/7/365. You have no right to a day off on any holiday. I certainly remember working on Christmas day.
As for your other rant and following your illogic, why don’t we find the crappiest paying job in America and set all pay in accordance with that so we are all equal? You are starting to sound like a communist with all of your rantings against decent paying jobs. I told you before, we all make choices in life with regards to jobs and our income. It sounds like you are bitter with your choices.
As for your other rant and following your illogic, why don’t we find the crappiest paying job in America and set all pay in accordance with that so we are all equal? You are starting to sound like a communist with all of your rantings against decent paying jobs. I told you before, we all make choices in life with regards to jobs and our income. It sounds like you are bitter with your choices.
And here's what I'm saying -- this is a "statistic" that is being bandied about the internet by agenda-driven organizations. It is not even close to accurate. Check your sources. Then do some research and uncover the truth. You're getting mad at the wrong people, which is, of course, exactly what they want you to do.
Tim
Wrong again Tom. First, let’s start with the 30 days vacation. Do you know that weekends count as part of military vacation? Why, because you don’t automatically get any days off in the military outside of the 30 days of leave per year. Now let’s move on to the “unlimited sick days.” There is no such thing. Unlike the civilian world where you can pick up the phone or email your boss and cough or sniffle and tell them you don’t feel good and won’t be coming in today, there is no such thing as calling in sick when you are in the military. If someone in the military feels they are too sick to report to work, they still have to report to work first and then go to sick call at the hospital. The hospital doctors will make the determination of whether or not you are too sick to report to duty. It’s not a choice the soldier gets to make.
As for the holidays, I guess you didn’t read my earlier post where I said there is no such thing as guaranteed holiday time off in the military. If you are scheduled to work, you have to work. Think about how many military people are in Afghanistan and Iraq right now. Do you think they are enjoying the holidays? How about all of the sailors on ships right now out on deployment/patrol? Sailors are tied to their ship 24/7 when they are at sea. No such thing as a day off and enjoying a cold beer.
This has now become an apples/oranges argument on your part. First we were comparing highly overpaid government workers to their civilian counterparts, and now we have morphed into comparing the highly overpaid government workers to other government workers who happen to be in the military. I find that somewhat ironic.
I don’t know what pay scale you looked at when you came up with the conclusion that government air traffic controllers make twice what military air traffic controllers make. Does that include overtime pay? If so, I suppose you know there is no such thing as overtime pay in the military. They can work you as many hours a day as they want. The enlisted ranks in the military go from E-1 through E-9 with E-1 being the lowest rank, and E-9 being the highest rank. There are pay differences between each rank of course. So if you are comparing an E-1 with a GS-13, there would be quite a bit of difference in pay.
Guess what? Air Traffic controllers don’t grow on trees. Not just anyone can perform that job. There is a high wash-out rate. The job is damn stressful as peoples’ lives are depending on you performing your job. They deserve to be paid well. And those who served in the military as air traffic controllers have a leg up on getting hired as a civilian air traffic controller due to their experience and veteran’s preference. One other thing you also need to keep in mind, the typical air fields that military air traffic controllers oversee don’t have anywhere near the volume of air traffic that has to be directed like their civilian counterparts do at major airports.
I already explained to you once that the government changed the retirement system in the 1980s to make it less generous to all new federal hires. It’s called FERS, and in order to have any type of decent retirement, you have to invest in the stock or bond market and take risks just like everyone else. I told you before, if you think working for the government is the best job out there, you need to find a government job and quit complaining. Otherwise, you are just sounding like sour grapes. It’s not like there aren’t lots of civilian jobs that pay super high salaries that government workers could only dream about. Here’s the job I want: I want to be put in charge of a Fortune 500 company and know that even if I run the company into the ground and get fired, I will have a golden parachute and land on my feet with $5M-$10M. In the meantime, I want to get yearly multi-million dollar pay bonuses before I jump out with my golden parachute.
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Tom-I don’t know where the reference to “Clark” is coming from. I assume you mean Clark AFB in the Philippines. Clark AFB was a stopover on the way to Thailand and on the way back for me. I never spent any time there outside of waiting to get back on an airplane.
The Christmas that I worked was at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas. I worked in Aircraft Control which was actually a very good job and not to be confused with Air Traffic controllers. We were responsible for all maintenance on all of the aircraft on the flight line and the room had to be manned 24/7. Since I was the only single guy, I worked Christmas so the rest of the guys could have Christmas with their families.
The Christmas that I worked was at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas. I worked in Aircraft Control which was actually a very good job and not to be confused with Air Traffic controllers. We were responsible for all maintenance on all of the aircraft on the flight line and the room had to be manned 24/7. Since I was the only single guy, I worked Christmas so the rest of the guys could have Christmas with their families.
This video is just propaganda...
I've been a City employee for >28 years. I'm a union member in a "Right to work" state, Arizona.
Videos like the one posted here by the OP are just B.S., in my opinion.
My city delivers water for less than half the rate charged by the largest private water company in the state.
We have a city councilman who belittles us in the press here, constantly. See if you can guess who one of his political contributors is?
P.S., this private water company is requesting an 82% rate hike in a west valley city. Their "connection fee" estimate of $61,000,000.00 was off by >90%.
I've been a City employee for >28 years. I'm a union member in a "Right to work" state, Arizona.
Videos like the one posted here by the OP are just B.S., in my opinion.
My city delivers water for less than half the rate charged by the largest private water company in the state.
We have a city councilman who belittles us in the press here, constantly. See if you can guess who one of his political contributors is?
P.S., this private water company is requesting an 82% rate hike in a west valley city. Their "connection fee" estimate of $61,000,000.00 was off by >90%.
Ah, but government-run entities don't pay taxes and aren't regulated to death with obscene amounts of paperwork. Private enterprise is subject to thousands of regulations, the cost of compliance probably making up at least a third of their cost of doing business, then the taxes they pay are another third, and what's left goes to their legitimate expenses, if they make enough income to pay those. The only way to compete with the government in terms of prices is to run the business underground and off the books.
It's news to me. I would like to know the businesses the US government seems to be in .. I have a small business pay my taxes and seem to find transparent non-underground or off the book to do OK ... I never saw the government as competition as a matter of fact I am looking forward to do some business with them or their local counterparts.
Additional taxes for private companies...
Mark,
I don't know what additional taxes or paperwork you're referring to?
As an example, the City of Phoenix was underbid on a sanitation contract for the northeast area of the city, some years ago.
The winning company received a 7 year contract. They came in acting like they were going to prove a private contractor could easily fulfill the contract obligation(s). After a few years, they went to City Hall complaining they weren't going to be able to fulfill their obligations. They had performed minimal maintenance on the fleet of (City) vehicles given over to them, when they first began their contract. The City gave them another batch of vehicles. By the time the contract ended, they had again run all the vehicles into the ground. The taxpayers had to pay much more than the contracted amount, when you add in the price for all these trucks.
There was no additional paperwork or additional taxes for this private company, that I'm aware of. If you can point out any, I'm waiting to hear about them...........
Mark,
I don't know what additional taxes or paperwork you're referring to?
As an example, the City of Phoenix was underbid on a sanitation contract for the northeast area of the city, some years ago.
The winning company received a 7 year contract. They came in acting like they were going to prove a private contractor could easily fulfill the contract obligation(s). After a few years, they went to City Hall complaining they weren't going to be able to fulfill their obligations. They had performed minimal maintenance on the fleet of (City) vehicles given over to them, when they first began their contract. The City gave them another batch of vehicles. By the time the contract ended, they had again run all the vehicles into the ground. The taxpayers had to pay much more than the contracted amount, when you add in the price for all these trucks.
There was no additional paperwork or additional taxes for this private company, that I'm aware of. If you can point out any, I'm waiting to hear about them...........
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