(no subject)
Just in case there are some out there being taken in by the Republican message machine, here are some facts about us "overpaid" federal workers. For those of you who aren't so gullible, please excuse me while I vent anyway:
1. A very, very large chunk of federal employees are "wage grade", i.e. "blue collar" employees. These employees' salaries are determined by an annual wage survey that matches their job to local private positions of the same skills set. If, say, an aircraft mechanic works at a base that has no major airports located in the "local area" of the wage survey, these employees generally get screwed every single year. This happens a lot.
2. I am not overpaid. I live in a crappy house (cheapest I could find in the area) that I can't really afford - so unless I have a roommate, I am losing money. Someone explain to me how I am "overpaid", please. Oh yeah, I forgot, my "awesome" medical benefits somehow count in this new math. You know, those health insurance guys who refuse to pay my emergency room bills and destroyed my credit rating? Mm.
3. There are plenty of jobs in government that don't correlate to the outside world, and levels of responsibility that have ZERO equivilency in the outside world. I think we handle these responsibilities to the best of our abilities, though, and seriously on-the-cheap. When you compare apples to apples, though, you will find jobs that do have similarities are woefully underpaid in the federal sector. Take the base security guard who, charged with protecting 20,000 federal employees and residents (all of whom are critical to our national security), makes a fraction of his mall cop counterpart down just down the road. Somebody explain to me how he is overpaid, please. Oh, and if he had no previous security experience, he probably needed to provide proof of at least some college education to get that job - because government doesn't do entry-level.
4. The federal government is currently the largest employer in the U.S. (now that WalMart has downsized to 2nd place just within the past year or two). But don't be fooled into thinking that this is "big government" by some unstable boob pretending to cry on cable "news". Per capita, we have the smallest government of ALL western industrialized nations.
5. Lastly, being the largest employer in the US, you'd think we would have some pretty serious overhead, right? Well, the highest paid executive in our "company", the President of the United States (a guy who has 7,000 nuclear warheads at his command), makes $400,000 a year. Golly, how much do you think the CEO of WalMart makes annually?
Eh, but what do I know. It was in the USA Today so I must be totally wrong.