Why Isn't Anyone Talking Later Retirement for Government Workers?

We're living in "get it while you can" mentality. It's always the ME, ME, ME.

This is a great story. It goes beyond state and local retirement. Why is there not talk of more cuts in personnel at all goverment levels. Why have w enot talked about cutting the enormously unfair retirement packages of senators and congressmen. How about cutting the budgets of senators and congressman by half?? They have several offices, a multitude of staff, expense accounts, salary and a lucrative retirement. And they have the gall to comment about Wall Street bonuses??? We need less goverment. Start by cutting their staff. In fact be a senator or congressman should only be a part time job. Most of what they do is a waste of time. Pay should be comensurate with a part time job.

Is it any wonder that the private sector is dieing? The federal government has been destroying it for many years. Most people quit the private sector in hopes of finding a government job. Great benefits, paid vacations, made up holidays, no accountability work, very little worry about losing your job, early retirement. What more could you ask for? Sure beats the hell out of trying to make a living in the private sector. After these come the banking institutions, which are nothing more then leech jobs on the private sector. These include credit card processing and the rest of the usury institutions. I would bet if you did a study, you would find that most of the so called job creation done by all of the administrations over the past 25 to 30 years are banking and credit card related. One big giant blood sucking leech on the private sector. Then comes the insurance industry, which again, is a big giant leech on the private sector. To top that off, while all of this parasitic creation is being done, the real jobs are sent over to other nations so slave labor can be used to create cheap inferior products that we are forced to buy because the only jobs left are service related unless you have some overpriced college degree, in which case you can get a better service related job. Then, because some schmuck went to college and earned the right to screw everything up and in the process jacks up their own salary to the level of a higher entity, and creates a sort of inflationary game based on arrogance, the people at the bottom who have to take all the crap service related jobs, just to eat, are left without a lifejacket because they don't have the option of giving themselves a huge raise that they deserve for working and not screwing stuff up. What's the answer, who knows? The country has been busy creating the problem for so long, ignoring the truths while basking in their credit, and now seems willing to listen to the parasite telling the host why they are needed. As a person living in private sector hell, the only thing I can say is, I don't have a lot of blood left and may soon have to become a parasite to survive.

Many federal employees WOULD continue to work but are required to retire by law. Talk to you Congress. Every federal law enforcement officer or agent is REQUIRED to retire at 57. A great many would continue working since the vast majority are healthy and willing.

Hats off there Brian Sullivan You made it to me someone actually cares club. I'd like to take your last line there regarding living longer, and make that focus for a subject. I continually ask myself, what good is any profit from oil if burning oil is so bad for my health. For anyone who dares to question this, let's see them take just a quart of oil - and burn it in their home. Probably immediate $20,000 loss on property value + easily 10% of property. You wouldn't breath in burning oil, why breath in burning gas. You think China really care to spend on platinum catalytic converters ? Best minds at Harvard in Atmospheric Chemistry ? show China's toxic sludge surviving in PLUMES in the US, as in, undiluted, intact as when they started their journey across the pacific. It's really fluke - but image that plume in your life, your lungs. Forget China on mercury emissions, more folks at Harvard it seem, and this time Cornell seem to show direct correlation between childhood neurological deficit and rainfall. I would argue what good is anything if health is forfeited. Without health, nothing else matters. And yet ? some people forget about this and chase today's dollar robbing tomorrow's child blind of a potential for a healthy life. And for what ? cheap oil money. 'looky leeeeroy, it just pours outta the ground, let's sell it and people can burn it' oil has had it's century, 100 years is enough. same with coal. Solar, wind and geothermal can power the grid, nuclear scarily enough is a better choice than coal or petro. I'd say if anything that is disadvantageous to ones community is a crime as I define it ? petro based auto's are a crime. hmm I never looked at the upside of a car jacking ? no, there is no upside. nor to a home jacking IRA jacking or in general, backbone of US financial sector jacking as of late. in fact, let's forget car jackers let's focus on Treasury jackers.

Maybe no one has any faith the government will be around long.

Example of wasting time as a politician - why would we have hearing about steroid use but not investigate Barney Franks initmate relationship with a Fannie Mae exec??? Steriods is a police matter, not congressional. Somebody hitting more home runs than he should have is just a little less important than the collapse of the mortgage market.

Let's look at the bright side to the failing of a nation state. No more threat of terrorism, because there would be no more red target. Gee, and we could have just sub primed ourselves into oblivion as a nation state and skipped the war on terror ?

Tell Rove he can't have my latest software, it prints up the neighborhood fliers for the entire US down to the BLOCK level profiling on race, income, etc. Over 500 categories. Load it up with rules - say for single Hispanic mothers. BAM - 171,932 zoned fliers, all easily sent off to each district office. With this kind of voter issue localization / manipulation ? You could win 2012. And to think, I only grabbed 1.3 tb of data from US census to do it. Sorry Karl - maybe your team wasn't smart enough to go out and pull in SF4 from Census to get you SURGICAL marketing tools based on census data. But winning elections is about manipulating the voter to vote for you right ? You just have to think you're right, or not care and go under false pretense. I'm not insane - we're just watching Savings and Loan from the Bush family part II. Wow, now insurance companies are becoming S & L 's wow. Jojo's Crab Deep Fry is probably next in line at some strip mall. Dear Mr. Paulson, or is it Dr. Paulson. I run a fish fry and we're tight on funds. JoJo isn't actually a real person now, but we need 2.8 million to expand and compete with our neighbors, we want to put them out of business. 2.8, call it an even 5 million should do it. thanks US Treasury oh yeah, and we're now JoJo's Savings and Loan by the Sea on paper. So, qualify us, and we'll be on our way. Thanks Treasury

So Obama had a staff of about 60 and a budget of $3 million. Try multiplying that by 500 senators and congressman. Think about that - 60 people to assit one senator??? How about we cut that back to 10 and budget of no more than $1,000,000 (which is still high). Now take the $2,000,000 saved for each senator and congressman and go do something productive. By the way that is about $1 billion dollars each and every year. The pay for senators and congressman should be cut by 1/3 immediatley. We only need them to work about 3 months of the year so that is still a hefty wage. That will save an addtiional $30,000,000. We are starting to talk some real savings now -

The idea of having government workers be they federal, state, county, or city be required to work longer to earn their retirement benefits is great but should also be combined with reducing those benefits. Why is it that most of those workers have far benefits both before and after retirement than the majority of those who employ them (taxpayers). Why is it that none of the institutions or industries that have received or are asking for taxpayer funded bailouts are being required to modify their pension structure downward. After all pensions are a thing of the past for the majority of the taxpaying public. We are left to try to fund our retirement with a 401K or IRA and little else. Those of us who have seen our retirement plans depleted by the huge loses in equities are going to have to lower our retirement expectations and probably work longer. To add insult to injury these very same people are being asked to fund bailout after bailout to industries and companies often justifying the need for that money to fund the very expensive and lucrative pension benefits that they provide. I say, any company that receives taxpayer money from the government should be required to first renegotiate any pension benefits program that it is a part of to bring that program into line with the private sector. If the companies or the workers affected refuse then I guess they would rather face bankruptcy. So be it.

Hey Let's sell out the health of the kids so some fat 60 year Larry Craig's can cash in on ANWR ! yeah

Strong unions--the same thing that is killing the auto industry. Already pretty much killed off coal, steel, railroads, etc.

I think the US Gov,t already has this planned, think under the new rules men can retire at 75, and woman at 80, (women do live longer you know) I think along with the revised retirement age, they also will get free "mandatory" flu shots upon retiring.

Are you including the US Military in your "Government Employee" category? Because if you are, you and I have a problem.

As a former government employee, I had a better pension plan, better health insurance, more holidays, more sick days, and more vacation days than most. All I had to do was show up, be there, push paper and play politics with my comrades. Almost no concern for layoff and the rule of 80 guaranteed a nice retirement at age 55. Almost noone is talking about it. Why not just give everyone a government job? The other day I heard someone scream about America becoming Socialist. The truth is that about 1 in 4 of all US jobs are governement: federal, state, county or city. I would say that America is already Socialist when 1 out of 2 households is receiving a government check. Delusions preclude their speech concerning the virtues of US Capitalism. Deluded. Arrogant. Proud. Ignorant. Wake up. What we have had for years in the US is "Selective Socialism" or maybe Facism. A considerable percentage is already on the government payroll - the select. And most government employees don't produce anything except paper forms and a growing government tax deficit. They push paper and discuss politics and spend taxpayer money to build their ivory towers, self importance and government/taxpayer guaranteed pension funds. They want to produce more government works programs to maintain the status quo so that they can bleed the middleclass subcontractor and the man with a shovel in his hand. Again, very few even talk about it. Why not start slashing governement expenditures and allocations? How about a 30% cut at every level? Yea, that's right government employee, from the top manager to the public service blue shirt - you take a 30% cut in pay and benefits. You don't have to layoff - just cutback - reduce workweek hours, more time off without pay. The "government employee" class will survive. Sorry Mr. President and Mr. Congressman that means you too. Remember your own words, we are in a crisis. Stop bleeding and leeching off of the taxpayer or you just might end up with too small a host. Didn't we learn anything from the Vietnam War and the Soviet Union's failure in Afghanistan? Now Obama wants to redeploy to Afghanistan? I expected more from you Barrack. Now we've added "special" insurance, investment banking, real estate firms and perhaps the "select" auto companies to the government dole. The crim-de-la-crim of paper pushers. Fire = Finance, Insurance and Real Estate - more money suckers, not producers - living off the production of small business and waning corporations. And again, almost noone is talking about. And now a lame duck president wants to speak of the virtures of capitalism when in reality we're already selectively socialist. Oh, and careful what you say - big brother is always watching and listening. gman

Once again, Matt is right on! Perhaps you should run for office.

Our congress is no more than a legalized mafia. Where else can you work one term, and draw full retirement and health benefit for the rest of your life. And they have the balls to set up there and rant and rave and blame everone but themselves.

Why is no one talking about about this:U.S. Code Title 12, Chapter 3, Subchapter 7, Section 301. Powers and duties of board of directors; suspension of member bank for undue use of bank credit. Each Federal reserve bank shall keep itself informed of the general character and amount of the loans and investments of its member banks with a view to ascertaining whether undue use is being made of bank credit for the speculative carrying of or trading in securities, real estate, or commodities, or for any other purpose inconsistent with the maintenance of sound credit conditions; and, in determining whether to grant or refuse advances, rediscounts, or other credit accommodations, the Federal reserve bank shall give consideration to such information. The chairman of the Federal reserve bank shall report to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System any such undue use of bank credit by any member bank, together with his recommendation. Whenever, in the judgment of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, any member bank is making such undue use of bank credit, the Board may, in its discretion, after reasonable notice and an opportunity for a hearing, suspend such bank from the use of the credit facilities of the Federal Reserve System and may terminate such suspension or may renew it from time to time.Whoever knowingly makes any false statement or report, or willfully overvalues any land, property or security, for the purpose of influencing in any way...shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both. Just curious.

I agree! We should be imprisoning these people or taking the money they are making to pay for there mistakes. Thats what financial liability is all about, but instead we are giving them more money. That makes no sence. All we are doing is devaluing our dollar, and teaching people if you make enough money you dont have to be held accountable for your actions. Why arent these people being prossicuted? The letter of the law states that they should be in jail, or bankrupt. So why are the american people paying for there mistakes, while they live free in million dollar mansions? When the government that was set up to protect the american people, is doing little more than robbing us blind, its time for action. I can smell the revolution..

It wasn't completely unexpected that those running for the presidency didn't criticize Congress. With a 10% approval rating it should have been one of the major issues in the last race but no one seemed to care that the people running for the presidency came from that illustrious group. Wonder who writes their resumes and references and other fairy tales?

Why isn't anyone talking about Lowering the retirement age! "Lower the retirement age, from the current 62 to 78 years old, down to 58 years. This simple act, will create jobs, and lower unemployment. And will have the effect of increasing wages, as workers move up to higher paying jobs, replacing older skilled workers. As wages go up, more money is placed into the Social Security Trust Fund, to help offset the cost of an earlier retirement age." Full article here: Lower The Retirement Age to Boost the Economy The reason why no one, not the leading economists, venture capitalist, bankers, CEO's, can figure out how to solve our economic problems, is because they are thinking in terms of Keynes and Friedman. This situation cannot be solved with either approach. Instead, counter-intuitive economics, is required.

Whoa! Slow down. Some of these solutions seem more scattershot than a Dick Cheney hunting party. The net result of budget shortfalls at the state level is increased taxes. The net result of less state-level services is infrastructure failure. Let's not take the home state workers and string them up because we have failed them on a federal level. Two things got us to where we are today. We let our financial institutions conduct themselves, as David Brooks, conservative columnist for the NYTimes, as "politically powerful crony capitalists". That led to the demise of a trustworthy financial system and the states, many of which did not have enough funding dollars to follow-through on the mandates issued by Washington, have already trimmed budgets to bare bones. The investments made by huge state pension funds made them now seem portray them as no smarter than we are. But to attack these workers is not the course of action we should take. Instead of cutting jobs, we should be adding them - at the state level, the county level and the city level. If many of the unemployed or future members of the jobless ranks were offered work within their own municipal jurisdiction, I doubt few would pass up the opportunity. Think of how many foreclosures would be saved, property taxes would be paid and consumer activity would return with just the creation of a single job. Now imagine the creation of hundreds of thousands of them. Once that happens, businesses would begin to lure these public employees to the private sector and competition, as described by the free markets would once again thrive. While we need an measure of urgent action, the best equal and opposite reaction will be to grow what works, not dismantle the whole of the system.

This story is factually incorrect. The federal employees retirement pay is based on an average of the last three years of pay. So it is factually incorrect to say employees take a promotion for three months and then retire. If your position doesn't agree with the facts you must change your point but not the facts.

I agree with Jason, let's start gutting the money sucking leeches.