Federal workers earning double their private counterparts
Sec. Gates Cuts Pentagon Budget As Fed Pay Swells
| Imagine if all government departments cut their own budgets before Congress did it for them. Government workers might then face the same reality everyone else does. We trim, blend, and append two 2010 articles on Aug 10 from (1) the Washington Independent, on Gate’s initiative by by Annie Lowrey and (2) USA Today on federal pay by Dennis Cauchon. |
by Annie Lowrey and by Dennis Cauchon
- Preempting Washington, Gates Cuts Pentagon Budget
The Pentagon is trimming its own budget. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced he will close a base, reduce the number of generals, and take other measures to slim the military. The New York Times reports:
- Mr. Gates did not place a dollar figure on the total savings from the cutbacks, some of which are likely to be challenged by members of Congress intent on retaining jobs in their states and districts. But they appear to be Mr. Gates’s most concrete proposals to cut current spending as he tries to fend off calls from many Democrats for even deeper budget reductions, and they reflect his strategy of first trying to squeeze money out of the vast Pentagon bureaucracy.
While large headquarters have been combined and realigned over the years, Pentagon officials could not recall a time when a major command was shut down and vanished off the books, even though some jobs will probably be added elsewhere to carry on essential parts of the mission.
The Wall Street Journal estimates the cuts could save $100 billion over five years. Imagine other departments and agencies doing the same and cutting themselves before Washington does the cutting for them.
Fred Kaplan, at Slate, throws on some cold water, though, noting that Defense has a whole lot to cut and should anticipate further budgetary scrutiny going forward:
- The steps Gates took today have far-reaching implications; I don’t mean to minimize them. But there are other issues and questions that tap more deeply into the foundations of what he himself calls our “cumbersome and top-heavy” military, which has “grown accustomed to operating with little consideration to cost.” For instance: How many submarines and aircraft carriers does the Navy really need? And do all those carriers need the same number of aircraft and escort ships? How many fighter planes does the Air Force really need? How many brigades does the Army really need?
Gates’ new reforms are based on two premises: First, that the nation can’t afford unceasing growth in the defense budget; second, that the nation can afford moderate growth in the defense budget, as long as the Pentagon shows good faith by slashing what any objective observer would label “waste.” The first premise is unassailable, the second probably too optimistic. The fact is, we can’t afford growth in the defense budget, period. To get the cuts he’s after, Gates -- as a matter of political realism -- has to leave the rest of the budget alone. But at some point, some secretary of defense is going to have to open it all up to scrutiny.
JJS: From military over-spending to civilian over-spending.
- Federal workers earning double their private counterparts
At a time when workers' pay and benefits have stagnated, federal employees' average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn.
Federal workers have been awarded bigger average pay and benefit increases than private employees for nine years in a row.
Federal civil servants received average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The federal compensation advantage has grown from $30,415 in 2000 to $61,998 last year.
Public employee unions say the compensation gap reflects the increasingly high level of skill and education required for most federal jobs and the government contracting out lower-paid jobs to the private sector in recent years.
For the 2-million-person federal workforce, Obama asked for a 1.4% across-the-board pay hike in 2011, the smallest in more than a decade. Federal workers also would qualify for seniority pay hikes. Congressional Republicans want to cancel any across-the-board pay hike in 2011, which would save $2.2 billion.
What the data show:
•Pay. The average federal salary has grown 33% faster than inflation since 2000.
•Total compensation. Federal compensation has grown 36.9% since 2000 after adjusting for inflation, compared with 8.8% for private workers.
JJS: Is there really that much work for government to do? Whatever happened to Jefferson’s governing least being governing best? If we operated in a just economy, would the state still be so huge?
We hardly want citizens to go without pay. However, from here, it seems people should get paid for producing value (paid by those who value what they do). Plus, people should get paid a share of the commonwealth, of society’s surplus, which largely is all the money we spend for the nature we use, a surplus since nobody exerted any labor or capital to build Earth and because all of society in concert generates the value we attach to land, resources, EM spectrum, etc.
Once people start getting a Citizens Dividend, and are allowed to keep their true earnings untaxed, then we’d enjoy a degree of material security that’d make us less grasping and more willing to enjoy leisure, the promise of techno-progress that would finally arrive. We need to stop expecting all our income from jobs and start reawakening to the fact that we do have a source of wealth that belongs to us all.
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Editor Jeffery J. Smith runs the Forum on Geonomics.
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Also see: US outspends everyone on arms, funding enemies, too
Why Pay the Privileged our Public Money?
Major paper fingers state favors for insiders |
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