Whats everyones thoughts on the labeling government and federal employees as villains and the mass firings? Seems unwarranted but who knows.

There are only 2.2 mil gov employees and they make an average $100k a year. If they fire all of them thats $220 billion, so a drop on the bucket compared to the yearly budget.

Wouldn't it make more since to raise taxes and reduce spending?

For what it's worth, salary is only part of the expense. Benefits, especially the Government benefits which are pretty good, cost at least as much as the salary. Savings would probably be closer to $500 billion, or half a trillion dollars. I'm not in favor of firing everyone, just pointing out salary is only part of the cost - this is true of private industry as well.

You're trolling us and using a VPN to disguise your location. I've already deleted one of your posts.

Have a nice day

I don't consider federal employees villains because I've worked with federal employees and the vast majority of them are intelligent hard working people with a minority of them being lazy and unproductive. With that said the federal payroll needs to be trimmed but in a more orderly fashion which has been done in part when Trump offered government workers 8 months of salary if they voluntarily resigned their positions. Layoffs of government employees isn't anything new and Clinton fired over 300 thousand government workers during his first term. The only reason liberals and the left suddenly care about government workers is because its Trump laying them off but these same bleeding hearts weren't concerned about the government workers and military Biden fired when they refused to take the C19 vaccine or the tens of thousands of healthcare workers, police, fire fighters and first responders that lost their jobs thanks to Biden's vaccine mandate.

Salary is only part of it. It’s the back end costs that can be significant.

I happy with reducing the size of the government workforce. If they’re good at their job they can try to get one in the private sector. Or start their own company.

I don’t think the Feds need $500 an hour consultants on staff to help them manage work flow.

quote:

Originally posted by btanchors:
For what it's worth, salary is only part of the expense. Benefits, especially the Government benefits which are pretty good, cost at least as much as the salary. Savings would probably be closer to $500 billion, or half a trillion dollars. I'm not in favor of firing everyone, just pointing out salary is only part of the cost - this is true of private industry as well.

Yeah very true, I hadn't included the benefits costs.

quote:

Originally posted by calugo:
I don't consider federal employees villains because I've worked with federal employees and the vast majority of them are intelligent hard working people with a minority of them being lazy and unproductive. With that said the federal payroll needs to be trimmed but in a more orderly fashion which has been done in part when Trump offered government workers 8 months of salary if they voluntarily resigned their positions. Layoffs of government employees isn't anything new and Clinton fired over 300 thousand government workers during his first term. The only reason liberals and the left suddenly care about government workers is because its Trump laying them off but these same bleeding hearts weren't concerned about the government workers and military Biden fired when they refused to take the C19 vaccine or the tens of thousands of healthcare workers, police, fire fighters and first responders that lost their jobs thanks to Biden's vaccine mandate.

Appreciate the comment. Yeah I wish it was more orderly, reading about how Clinton did it, he did a study and then started cutting positions. Where as now it seems random.

DRP seems like a fair option, first roll out was a mess, but DRP 2.0 seems to be better understood and working well.

I don't know much about government workers being fired for no taking the COVID vaccine, but for military that seems more political to refuse the COVID shot. For military they get all shorts of shots, but COVID is where they stop?

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
Salary is only part of it. It’s the back end costs that can be significant.

I happy with reducing the size of the government workforce. If they’re good at their job they can try to get one in the private sector. Or start their own company.

I don’t think the Feds need $500 an hour consultants on staff to help them manage work flow.

Agreed if they are good at their jobs they should be okay, as long as jobs in their area of expertise are available. But some government jobs are required to provide essential government services. If they do start their own company, who does the required job in the government? Should these services just be contracted out? Sounds like it ends up costing more in the long run.

What Fed job pay $500/hour? I'd like that job! Lol

Me thinks WickedJester got into the firewater this morning.

Look at the agencies being RIF'd.

USAID. Funded woke and other bullshit all over the world.
USDOEd. 50 years and it drove the US to 31st in education.
Probationary workers. All were hired under the Biden regime. Care to guess what their respective qualifications were?


And don't get me going on the flat out weaponiziation of the fed.gov intel and law enforcement agencies.

More heads need to roll.

quote:

Originally posted by Bytes:
Me thinks WickedJester got into the firewater this morning.

Lol I don't start till the afternoon on Sundays, it's the Lord's day after all!

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
Look at the agencies being RIF'd.

USAID. Funded woke and other bullshit all over the world.
USDOEd. 50 years and it drove the US to 31st in education.
Probationary workers. All were hired under the Biden regime. Care to guess what their respective qualifications were?


And don't get me going on the flat out weaponiziation of the fed.gov intel and law enforcement agencies.

More heads need to roll.

For USAID pretty much everything has been debunked or fake news.

Probationary workers - yes some were hired under Biden, but some were also job transfers or promotions of employees hired under Trump or previous administrations. Should we fire those being promoted? Qualifications requirements are set at the agency level or lower and don't change administration to administration.

Should the weaponiziation continue? Shouldn't it be stopped?

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
You're trolling us

Yup.

^^^^^^^^^
Troll for sure. Go back under the bridge.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
^^^^^^^^^
Troll for sure. Go back under the bridge.

Nah your trolling I guess. I'm just sharing my differing opinion and perspective. -20 years in the military and 5 years as a federal employee (hired under Trump admin)

When I last looked the entire non-DoD payroll was less than 4% of the goverment's discretionary spending. That's all "Salaries and Expensez" rolled up, including benefits and employer contributions.

CSRS and FERS retirement annuities (including the government's share of healh insurance premiums) are designated as part of thr G's non-discretionary spending. It's a large number but still low single-digits, dwarfed by any single "safety net" entitlement program on either side.

Unless you want to actually go Soylent Green and start using us as food in the entitlement programs, you're not squeezing any more juice out of firing literally the entire civil service than 4% now, and perhaps 2-3% out of the non-discretionary side down the line as "cost avoidance." We"d have zero people executing domestic or foreign policy, but hey.

At the tail end of 30 years, my FERS anuity comes to around $5400 net. There will be any number of posters who actually have a problem with that. Since my criminal and civil recoveries in just the last five years of my career exceeded-- by about seven multiples-- my entire career earnings and the entirety of what I'm likely to ever receive in retirement pay, there might be a lesson in there about broad-brushing or unintended consequences of indiscriminate cuts.

quote:

For USAID pretty much everything has been debunked or fake news.

Sources?

Nobody is saying all government employees are bad. Just the useless ones.

quote:

There are only 2.2 mil gov employees and they make an average $100k a year. If they fire all of them thats $220 billion, so a drop on the bucket compared to the yearly budget.

So we shouldn't even try? And do you think this is the only area we're trying to improve efficiency?

quote:

Wouldn't it make more since [sic] to raise taxes and reduce spending?

We have had taxes raised here, raised there, raised everywhere, without result. Reducing spending does make sense. But nobody has tried it until now. Republicans are not blameless here.

Cut the size and scope by half. First, we can’t afford it. Secondly, cut all redundancy. Lastly, place no BS performance based standards on employees. Federal 1811s that are allowed to work 2-3 cases a year that never lead to arrest need fired. Run each division like a business, with no merit boards or unions.

And this goes for the government at every level.

quote:

Originally posted by WickedJester:
Whats everyones thoughts on the labeling government and federal employees as villains and the mass firings? Seems unwarranted but who knows.

There are only 2.2 mil gov employees and they make an average $100k a year. If they fire all of them thats $220 billion, so a drop on the bucket compared to the yearly budget.

Wouldn't it make more since to raise taxes and reduce spending?

Who is labeling federal employees as villains? Not me.
And I haven't heard that from anyone else either. That's called a straw-man argument.

My daughter is a federal employee. That doesn't make her a villain. Still, I favor the DOGE cuts. We have way too much government, both in size and scope.

No, it would not make sense to raise taxes. We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
Yes, it would make sense to reduce spending.