The only government paycuts I will support at this time is a cut in the pay of Senators and Congressmen. I am not too worried about the budget until they take it seriously enough to do something about their ridiculous compensation.

A Bureau of Labor Statistics report that came out last week showed that federal employees make on average 26% less that their private sector counterparts. Which report is right? It is probably somewhere in the middle. It has been admitted that the CBO study was designed to come out with result that feds are overpaid. It is just like any other study....you start with the result that you want and then make the statistics fit. This is why I do not put any credence into any of these reports.

Do republicans have any ideas to improve the private sectors plight! Does cutting public sector jobs, pay and benefits improve the private sectors problems? If reducing taxes, especially on the job creators, improves the economy, increases jobs and our standard of living then why didn't that happen during the last administration? But really, if cutting taxes is the republican mantra, why are they against cutting working class taxes? Seems like eventually people will realize who and what the republicans actually stand for, but the republican sponsors are just too good at pitting americans against each other and fertilizing sour grapes in their garden of vegetables.

You know youre in a screwed up nation when "long-term unemployed" get a catchy name to describe them, and a 125 week welfare handout. What a scam on our grandchildren's future.

I'm a retired federal GS-840-12 Nuclear Engineer. Before the 3+% COLA we got along with Social Security recipients, my takehome pension was $1720 a month. After the raise and increase in health insurance premiums it's now $1750 a month. My brother-in-law was a grocer. He gets a pension from the Union and also draws $2150 a month from Social Security according to his wife. Yet as a federal worker I'm the one who was overcompensated. In my department, we had such a hard time hiring people, we paid people GS-3 pay to go get an engineering degree and come work for us. One of those students who was paid GS-3 pay went to school and instead of coming to work for us, went to work for the local city government, because they got a better deal. I started at $7200 a year when the average for my school's engineering grads was $1200 a month. The reason Repuglicans voted to punish the Feds is simply they hate them. A better question would be "Why do Federal workers vote for Repuglicans?" Believe me, they do. You should see the retiree newsletters with all this conservative idiot talk. You wouldn't believe it, but they vote for people who hate them.

Oh one other thing. I told my son, also an engineering grad to not go to work for the U.S. Government. He didn't. He now works for a contractor who gets all their contracts from the U.S. Government and he started at a salary way higher than I ended up with.

When you're losing blood, you take off the leeches. They deserve to lose the most because they work the least.

There are too many federal workers and their benefits kill the budget for the little they do. Reduce this bloated pig corps by 50% and make the rest of those jokers work for once in their lives!

If all federal workers worked for free as slaves and lived on bread and water and no benefits, the budget would still be out of whack. Yet the Conservative Repuglican ignoramuses believe the problem is all because of the Federal work force.

1. The top 500 Corporate profit makers should be hit with a substanical tax hike that cannot be avoided.

2. US Government needs to force China, South Korea and other countries to raise their currency rates to a level close to ours and rewrite all trade agreements.

3. US Government needs to impose greater regulations on US Corporations regarding allowing US Jobs to go overseas and provide incentives and mandates to bring manufacturing jobs back home

4. US Government needs to be concerned about getting the american people back to work and not laying people off and cutting benefits. Congress will never cut their benefits so why should any american have to have their benefits cuts.

5. US Corporations should be forced to honor retirement benefits to employees regardless of if the Corporation goes out of business. There should be a regulation to force corporations to keep enough money back to cover that. etc

Historically, the ONLY way right-wing mobs have maintained control is by distorting the truth and misleading the citizenry.

Imagine what it would sound like if right-wing candidates told the truth about their policies.

Senator Buffoon: "Hi, I'm running for office and I wanted to tell you about my platform. First, I want massive tax cuts for the ultra rich so they will donate more to my future campaigns and give me huge kick-backs and a obscenely paid position after I tire of fleecing the people.

"Second, I want to deregulate every f-ing industry I can get my hands on so BIG BUSINESS can run wild and do any and every destructive thing they can think of. We might even extend the tax credits to MEGACORPS like GE for exporting millions of jobs.

"Third, we will make up some science just because the real thing doesn't support our anti-environment stance. Who needs clean air and water anyway after I am dead and gone.

"Fourth, remember all those government programs that actually help people? You can forget that crap. If the poor and indigent can't pay Mitt Romney's income taxes for him then we will turn them over to the right-wing Flordians for a swift a efficient "final solution."

"Fifth, can't afford an education at the highest levels and most costly institutes? Too bad. You don't deserve one anyway. You also don't get any help with health care costs, job training, job placement or food stamps. That makes you less than human so off to Florida with you."

"Sixth, we can fix the courts. We already own most of them with our collection of kangaroos working for all sorts of mega corps. We made sure people can't do any harm to our corps or hold them accountable for nothing and justice is for those who can afford it.

"That is so over rated, that accountability thing. Who needs it? It didn't work for W and his collection of incompetents, so I say Americans don't want any accountability, oversight or an efficient, working government. A lawless, chaotic society offers so many opportunities for abuse and corruption. Embrace it!

"I almost forgot. That infrastructure thing we have ignored since anti-Saint Ronny opened this holy economic class war? Now we need about $10 Trillion just to repair the things we should have maintained all along since 1981. Forget that crap, too. Sell ya a national park out west for mining purposes. Or an unsafe bridge in upstate New York.

"Remember my name. I am Senator Buffoon, a proud right-winger, a veteran class warrior, and have I got a boat load of composite to feed all you idiots. So, vote for me. besides, this might be the last free and open election in this country now that the ultra wealthy and Megacorps can now thankful buy any sham election they want or turn it into a parody of democracy,

"A vote for Buffoon is a vote for more destruction of our once proud society!"

they’re better compensated than workers with comparable skills and experience in the private sector

Why would any rational working American want wages and benefits lowered in this country? Thinking Americans should understand that lowering average wages lowers all wages.

It's not a matter of "our taxes" paying them. It's about the working class working together to make this country better for all of us.

Please forgive the vocab mistakes, etc. I wrote this fast and to lazy

to fix the grammical errors but you may find it interesting and insightful.

DEBT VERSIS DEFICIT

Today
we see Americans bombarded on TV with concerns over the US Debt. We are told Debt this and Debt that; and
trying to scare the daylights out of us.
Yet we go back to PRIOR TO World War II, the United States was in a
depression and the US Government was borrowing money from the Federal Reserve
for years in order to operate the Federal Government and pay for services for
the American people. Then WW II hit.

The debt
incurred to win World War II drove the debt to where Taxpayers were on the hook
for a debt that was significantly bigger, as a percentage of G.D.P., than the debt
is today. (Reference: Paul Krugman, Economic Noble Prize Winner).

So when did the US Government pay back all that debt to the
Federal Reserve? I am 57 years old and I
don’t know anybody that was taxed to pay that debt back to the Federal
Reserve. Fact is, it was never paid back
and was not NEVER needed to be paid back.

First, families have to pay
back their debt. Governments don’t — all they need to do is ensure that debt
grows more slowly than their tax base. The debt from World War II was never
repaid; it just became increasingly irrelevant as the U.S. economy grew, and
with it the income subject to taxation. Second — and this is the point almost
nobody seems to get — an over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; U.S.
debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves. (Reference: Paul
Krugman, Economic Noble Prize Winner).

We know that after WW II, the depression was over, the economy was
booming and unemployment was less than ever before. What happened to the US Debt? How did the
economy recover and why?

So, in order to Pay for WW II, the Federal Government had to roll the
equivalent of Trillions of dollars out of the Federal Reserve to pay for WW II
on top of the already existing US Debt that had been developing over years
during the depression.

In order to finance the War, the Government began to REGULATE AND
TOOK CONTROL OF CORPORATIONS, THE RAILROADS, THE AIRLINES, THE AUTOMOBILE
COMPANIES, THE FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS, THE INSURANCE COMPANIES, ETC. The US
Government took over everything.

Then the US Government began directing these CORPORATIONS AND
COMPANIES to build military machinery such as Tanks, Fighters, Bombers,
Military Vehicles, developing a National Defense Highway System that we drive
on across this country today, other roads, bridges, dams, levies, the
electrical grid we have today across the country, and the foundation of the US
economic infrastructure we have today.
All designed, built and architected in the name of NATIONAL DEFENSE BY
CONTROL AND DIRECTION OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. ALL THE JOBS CREATED WERE
CREATED BY THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.

DEFICIT DEFICT DEFICIT

So by the end of WW II the government had a surplus of money to
operate the US Government and the DEFICT WAS GONE. Why? Because so many people had become employed
and PAYING TAXES that there was NO MORE DEFICIT. And what about the DEBT? Well it was still there but who cared? NOBODY
CARED ANYMORE ABOUT THE DEBT BECAUSE IT DID NOT MATTER. Fact is the US
Government is NOT A DEBT ACQUIRER BUT A USER AND DISTRIBUTOR OF CURRENCY.

It is a FACT that in order to remove the economic impact either
small or large of a Government DEBT, you have to remove it by getting more
people EMPLOYED SO THERE IS A LARGER TAX BASE. As Mr. Krugman explained; when
the tax base is larger than the need to operate the government (surplus), the
so called debt will shrink overtime.

So what happened after WW II? The US economy was booming and of
course the rest of the world wanted in on the action. We observe that the US
Government was willing to finance the reconstruction of Europe, Japan, and
other countries to help them rebuild their infrastructures and expand their
economies. How? It was done using US Dollars right from our US Federal Reserve.
Why was the United States willing to do this? Was not this also a kind of debt
to the United States Government since we were using our US Currency? Oh and by
the way, where is the proof these countries ever paid any of that money back to
our US Federal Reserve?

In the 1950’s the US Government saw the coming of the Computer
Age. They also knew and figured out that whoever controls the Financial
Information would control the world economies and thus to a large degree
control the resources of the world. I can argue that the US Government cut
deals and agreements with countries (secret or otherwise) that ensured that the
US Dollars would be the World Currency FOREVER through the International
Monetary Fund (IMF). This I believe was done and agreed to by China, Russia and
everybody else. In return the US Government agreed to finance the economic development
of these countries and the agreement to allow for moving US Manufacturing and
Production jobs overseas to their respective countries.

We see how the rest of the world economies shook when the trade centers
were hit and our economy shook. We see in 2008 when we almost had a US economic
meltdown how the rest of the world economies suffered simultaneously. I rest my
case on that point.

So deregulation of corporations has allowed them freedom to expand
US Manufacturing and Production of goods and services to foreign countries and
of course that has meant reduced regulations, lower labor costs, and lower
production and manufacturing costs.

So during the days of WW II, we were mostly a domestic economy and
the US Government really didn’t care about what other countries thought or how
corporations felt about us rolling money out of the Federal Reserve to finance
the war or fix our economic problems.
There was only one big economy back then and it was USA.

Today, we have successfully financed off the back of our Federal
Reserve the expansion of many of the economies of the world and the US tax
payer has helped this happen. Americans have lost millions of jobs to foreign
countries and foreigners over the years since WW II and now Corporations can
not only develop, produce and manufacture goods and services for less in these
foreign countries, but they can now in turn SELL THEIR PRODUCTS RIGHT THERE IN
THESE COUNTRIES. There is no incentives
for Corporations to bring these jobs back to the United States and most
Republican Law Makers and many Democratic Law Makers are so bought off by
Corporations, they have no political or moral will to change things. As a
matter of Fact they want to sell to the American people the brainwashing idea
that we need to deregulate Corporations further and tell us that is the answer
to creation of more jobs here in the USA. They also want to sell us the idea
that we should not tax US Corporations because if we do, that will also cause
them not to hire and give them more incentive to send more jobs overseas.

CORPORATIONS AND THE GOVERNMENT

We hear the words, Democracy, Free Trade, Free Market, Capitalism
and Republicans want us to believe that those principles are consistent with Government
Corporation Deregulation Policies and lower Corporate Tax Policies. First of
all; take any Corporation and what kind of “Government” is a Corporate
Entity? IT IS A COMMUNISTIC ORGANIZATION
OR GOVERNMENT IN AND OF ITSELF. Let’s see what is the purpose of a Corporation?
It is to SERVE A BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND MAKE THEM MORE MONEY EACH YEAR. Does a
Corporation care about serving and taking care of its employees? NO. If a
Corporation could, it would force slave labor to make more profit. It is not meant
to serve the employee but only the Board of Directors. Its sole purpose is to
make a profit and as much profit as possible ANY

WAY LEGALLY POSSIBLE.

So what is the purpose of the government? The purpose of the government is to REGULATE
CORPORATIONS SO THEY CANNOT RUN OVER THE PEOPLE AND CREATE A FAIR COMPETITIVE
ENVIRONMENT SO THE PRINCIPLES OF FREE TRADE, FREE MARKET, CAPITALISM AND DEMOCRACY
CAN EXIST FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL AMERICANS.

CORPORATIONS AND GOVERNMENT DEBT

Today we are not a domestic economy. Today we are a world economy
thanks to the US Tax Payer and the US Federal Reserve. Corporations care about the US Debt (Money
rolling out of the Federal Reserve where there is not enough tax base to cover
it); because the more Debt we have; the more it costs US Corporations to trade
against other currencies on the world market. So it de-values US Corporate
Stock the larger the US Debt.

For me, I do not give a rats butt how our debt affects US
Corporations or other World Currencies. Haven’t we done enough already for
these countries and Corporations. We bail out the Financial Markets
(Corporations Stocks) and leave the American people suffering. That seems to be
the agenda – Save the Rich and heck with the Poor and Middle Class. We send trillions of dollars to foreign
countries and ignore the poverty and suffering of the American People.

CORPORATIONS AND LAWMAKERS

Let’s face it. They are BOUGHT BY CORPORATIONS TO SELL US THIS
BULL CRAP. Why DOESN’T US GOVERNMENT DO
WHAT IT NEEDS TO DO AND ROLL ENOUGH MONEY (TRILLIONS) OUT OF THE FEDERAL
RESERVE TO HELP US, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND GET THE ECONOMY BOOMING AGAIN? Why
not give every American a million dollars? Why not? We give millions to other
countries and the rich? Who is the biggest welfare recipient? It sure as hell
is not the American People. Let me assure you of that.

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO FIX OUR ECONOMY? There is no incentive for
lawmakers making millions a year off booming corporations stock. Corporations
have bought enough lawmakers that they can influence law and US Policy. For corporations it would be better for
Americans to be getting $2.00 an hour with no insurance, no benefits, etc. They
would love to turn us into a third world country on the level of Mexico.

SO WHAT ABOUT CHINA?

You hear this non-sense we have to be worried about China backing
our DEBT. China does that to a degree but not because they like us; they do it
because they have to. The US Federal Reserve controls their economy and if
China doesn’t play by the rules, the US could pull the plug on them. It’s like
this. If we put an embargo on China exporting to our country; it would sink
them as an example. Right now President Obama is working to get China to raise
their damn currency rates which they and South Korea and other countries should
of done years ago. But wait, why not. Because the damn Republicans and
Corporations have no interest in that happening. Put the whole US Government in a bind I
assure you they would quickly bring China around. Other countries raising their currency rates
would cost corporations more money and higher labor rates in those countries.
So from a Corporate perspective they will lobby forever to keep that from
happening. Thus you see the difficulty Obama is having getting that done.

IMF and CHINESE CURRENCY

Let me say this. If the US Dollar was to be replaced by the
Chinese Currency, you would see WW III. China exists today as a world power
strictly because the United States financed the expansion of their economy
using money from our Federal Reserve. The US Government is not going to let
them take control of the IMF; NOT EVER.

SO WHAT IS MONEY IN RELATION TO RESOURCES?

Whoever has the most power to control the resources of the world
or the power to take control of those resources if needed; controls the
bartering power of the world and thus ultimately has power to dictate economic
growth in the world.

I can argue that with all the environmental protection laws on the
books in the USA and the difficulty to tap into our own reserves; this
indicates that it is believed by the US Government to be in our country’s best
interest to use other countries resources first instead of our own and to try
and control their resources as much as possible. Thus we see the military
machine of the USA 10 times larger than any other military in the world with the
largest Naval presence. I believe that it was decided and probably secret
policy that the US Government would preserve our own resources at all cost and
use and manipulate other countries resources at our advantage. Thus we see the use of Saudi Arabia and other
country’s oil and our dependency on that oil today.

The issue today is dependency. We now trade security for oil in
that we pay for the oil and provide money to assist other countries to build up
not only their economies but also their military power. So with security
threats such as nuclear proliferation to other third world countries we have
now cut our noses off to spite our face.

It is becoming more popular now to rid our dependency on foreign
oil in exchange for using our own natural resources to reduce security threats
to our country.

From a currency perspective and value of money perspective you can
argue that the value of your currency is directly related to a country’s ability
to use another country’s resources or take those resources through military
means if there is no cooperation between the 2 countries for mutual interest.

So for one, the US has the largest most powerful military in the
world which provides leverage against other countries and bargaining for trade
advantage throughout the world. Forget the Economic Ratings by Financial
Institutions. They don’t mean anything to Governments. Resource Control is what
matters to a government because whoever has resources has the ability to CREATE
GOODS AND SERVICES AND CAN ESTABLISH ANY CURRENCY THAT DESIRE AND THEY BARGIN
TO MARKET THOSE RESOURCES AND PRODUCTS AT THEIR WILL.

Sure if you want to believe that Corporations matter in the long
run and believe in the status quo of how we do business with other countries
with normalized relationships; then you
can accept the Republican agenda and Corporate power and Corporate Government
influence.

These are GRAVE TIMES FOR AMERICANS. We need to listen to the 99 and
not the 1. The 99 movement is right on target to demonstrate on the steps of
corporations because they understand where the problems are originating from.

We have had a US Government for too long allowing monopolies such
as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac too much financial control, insurance companies
with too much power and control, oil companies with too much power and control
and we see Republicans wanting to continue this non-sense.

SIZE OF GOVERNMENT

Here again we see this non-sense Republican GOP Law Makers telling
the American people our government is too large and we need to reduce its size.
Size of the Government has nothing to do with what has been going on for 50
years. How easy it is to blame the size of the government and try scare the American
people with that. Reality is we are a big country with the largest economy in
the world and we have to have a growing government size to REGULATE THE GROWING
OF MORE AND MORE CORPORATIONS AND COUNTRIES AND THE SERVICES, RESOURCES, ETC
NEEDED TO KEEP OUR COUNTRY STABILIZED AND PROSPERING.

REDUCTION IN SIZE OF GOVERNMENT

What does that do? It creates higher unemployment, puts more
people on welfare and unemployment benefits and thus creates a larger deficit.
The Republican GOP will say it reduces the US Debt. That is a lie. IT DOES NOT
REDUCE THE US DEBT AND BESIDES THAT THE US GOVERNMENT DOES NOT HAVE DEBT AS WE
HAVE ESTABLISHED ABOVE. What it does is help create more unemployment and put
more of a percentage of Americans in poverty and reduce the middle class thus
increasing Corporate power over the American people. It helps to turn us into a third world
country. Selling this brainwashing bull
crap to the American people is diabolical and its simply providing more
corporate power to US Corporations.

The idea of borrowing money is truly not in the best interest of a
family or home owner. But if you’re the US
government and you control all the resources in the country and half the resources
of the world or potential to take control of 90% of the resources of the world,
does that really mean you have debt? NO absolutely NOT.

WHAT IS THE POTENTIAL OF THE UNITED STATES.

We have hardly tapped into our natural resources. I rest my case
here.

Stephen Bibb

Nobody
Understands Debt By PAUL KRUGMAN

Paul Krugman: Mr. Krugman received his B.A. from Yale
University in 1974 and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1977. He has taught at Yale, MIT
and Stanford. At MIT he became the Ford International Professor of Economics.

Mr. Krugman is the author or editor of
20 books and more than 200 papers in professional journals and edited volumes.
His professional reputation rests largely on work in international trade and
finance; he is one of the founders of the "new trade theory," a major
rethinking of the theory of international trade. In recognition of that work,
in 1991 the American Economic Association awarded him its John Bates Clark
medal, a prize given every two years to "that economist under forty who is
adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic knowledge."
Mr. Krugman's current academic research is focused on economic and currency
crises.

At the same time, Mr. Krugman has
written extensively for a broader public audience. Some of his recent articles
on economic issues, originally published in Foreign Affairs, Harvard Business
Review, Scientific American and other journals, are reprinted in Pop
Internationalism and The Accidental Theorist.

On October 13, 2008, it was announced
that Mr. Krugman would receive the Nobel Prize in Economics.

when people in D.C. talk about deficits and debt, by and large
they have no idea what they’re talking about — and the people who talk the most
understand the least.

First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments don’t —
all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base.
The debt from World War II was never repaid; it just became increasingly
irrelevant as the U.S. economy grew, and with it the income subject to
taxation.

Second — and this is the point almost nobody seems to get — an
over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; U.S. debt is, to a large
extent, money we owe to ourselves.

This was clearly true of the debt incurred to win World War II.
Taxpayers were on the hook for a debt that was significantly bigger, as a
percentage of G.D.P., than debt today; but that debt was also owned by
taxpayers, such as all the people who bought savings bonds. So the debt didn’t
make postwar America poorer. In particular, the debt didn’t prevent the postwar
generation from experiencing the biggest rise in incomes and living standards
in our nation’s history.

But isn’t this time different? Not as much as you think.

It’s true that foreigners now hold large claims on the United States,
including a fair amount of government debt. But every dollar’s worth of foreign
claims on America is matched by 89 cents’ worth of U.S. claims on foreigners.
And because foreigners tend to put their U.S. investments into safe, low-yield
assets, America actually earns more from its
assets abroad than it pays to foreign investors. If your image is of a nation
that’s already deep in hock to the Chinese, you’ve been misinformed. Nor are we
heading rapidly in that direction.

Now, the fact that federal debt isn’t at all like a mortgage on
America’s future doesn’t mean that the debt is harmless. Taxes must be levied
to pay the interest, and you don’t have to be a right-wing ideologue to concede
that taxes impose some cost on the economy, if nothing else by causing a
diversion of resources away from productive activities into tax avoidance and
evasion. But these costs are a lot less dramatic than the analogy with an over-indebted
family might suggest.

And that’s why nations with stable, responsible governments — that
is, governments that are willing to impose modestly higher taxes when the
situation warrants it — have historically been able to live with much higher
levels of debt than today’s conventional wisdom would lead you to believe.
Britain, in particular, has had debt
exceeding 100 percent of G.D.P. for 81 of the last 170 years. When
Keynes was writing about the need to spend your way out of a depression,
Britain was deeper in debt than any advanced nation today, with the exception
of Japan.

Of course, America, with its rabidly anti-tax conservative
movement, may not have a government that is responsible in this sense. But in
that case the fault lies not in our debt, but in ourselves.

So yes,
debt matters. But right now, other things matter more. We need more, not less,
government spending to get us out of our unemployment trap. And the
wrongheaded, ill-informed obsession with debt is standing in the way.

Working class and working small business owners of America,

Hey everyone. Please stop fighting amongst ourselves. Gov't workers, union, non-union and those who run small businesses but actually get out and work with your crew, we all should work together for the working class.

We all have common interests and common problems. It doesn't make sense to want someone else's wages lowered on the assumption that your check will increase.

There is an entire industry that goes around using actuarials to get average salaries in every job in every area. Then employers use this information to make their salaries competitive. This rarely means they give increases. When they say "competitive", they mean keeping wages down.

Thanks folks,

BD

PS,

Many on the right claim that we can save money by shutting down the federal departments of Education, Commerce and EPA and "return them to the states".

The reality is having 50 separate agencies with noone to organize these rules will cost even more. The adjustment goes from federal taxes to state and local taxes which will be less consistent and reliable.

NOTE: State taxes are no less taxes than federal.

The right-wing minions are always told who the boogie man is screwing up something. Notice it is never, ever the right-wing buffoons in power today or yesterday when things got so very screwed up. In other words, it is always someone else. There is ZERO accountability in the right-wing factions in this country. None. No accountability, no ethics, and nor morals regardless how many times they make the bogus claim.

Government workers don't get paid more than private industry. Its the other way around. By laws written by right-wingers. Contractors, by law, must be paid at least as much as government workers performing the same task. Usually they get paid vastly better than any government worker.

Consider this. A software engineer straight out of college will start for the federal government at about $22,000. Private industry is paying the same guy at least $30,000, more in high cost of living places. The government manager will pull down about $120,000 while his comparable private industry guy is around $250,000 with stock options thrown in for good measure. Ever hear of a government job with a stock option?

Want some real data? Go look for a government job here:

http://www.usajobs.gov/

Consider some of the positions there. Then ask yourself what does the president get paid? Think Roger Smith or Carl Icahn would work for a measly $400,000 a year?

What do White House staffers get paid? Less than $100,000. Ask Donald Trump what he pays his assistants.

Another real world example. A private in the army pulls in less than $20,000. But to save money 43's corrupt administration hired mercenaries, thousands of them. Blackwater alone paid their recruits $80,000 to do the same job. The soldiers did the dirty work of invasion. Then the "security" people got mercenaries to do what? Kill innocents and blow the whole gig due to ideologically induced incompetence and greed.

With these right-wing buffoons it is always the same things ad infinitum. How can they fleece the US government out of more billions. How can they blame someone else for all the blunders, baubles and blowups, How can they avoid any semblance of accountability.

Today the bad guy is the government worker, who has been cheated out of pay raise after pay raise after pay raise by the compassionate - yeah right - hate groups masquerading as conservative political parties. Last fall it was the evil school teachers in Wisconsin teaching our children liberal ideals such as how to think for themselves. Other places it has been fire fighters, police officers, even the anarchist school janitors bringing our country to its knees. It is always someone else with these guys. Next week it might be left-handed redhead diner, drive-in and dive waitresses working double shifts to afford shoes for the kids.

After 3+ decades of right-wing mismanagement, incompetence, finger-pointing, name-calling and obstruction of our government this country no longer resembles anything like a true democracy. We have corrupted courts who gave the ultra-rich the right to buy elections. We have louts and lizards in Congress blocking every attempt to fix things. We have the embarrassing parody of democracy the gop is writhing through trying to find one candidate to rule us all [and in the darkness bind us] in a campaign that has come down to who can tell the biggest lies the mindless minions will actually believe.

Ladies and gentlemen, I for one have had all the repuglican government I can stomach for one lifetime. I say it IS time to take our government AND society back from delusional dolts who have wrecked it and our economy. It is time we threw every last right-wing anti-American saboteur out of office while we still have something salvageable.

And fixing the country, we can start with holding the lying bastards and their baseless propaganda machine (Noise Corps) accountable for all they have said done. Too bad we can't get the 35 Trillion taxpayer dollars they burned through the last 32 years back. But maybe we can make the United States of America a place we can be proud of again. Not that conservative, dying nation the rabid right has engineered. The wrecked it all and only Liberals and Progressives can fix it. Again.

Congress falls in the category of federal workers, right? Then their pay should be reduced, their benefits reduced and they should pay more into their own pension accounts. How is it that they refuse to look at their own high salaries and benefits and refuse to take some of the bite as the rest of us do?

As a previous writer said, do-dos. Do as I say, not as I do.

I disagree. It's because only a tiny, tiny percentage of their base has the requisite education to become a federal employee.

Republican's totally missed the boat here, there should have been a 10% across the board federal worker cut minus cops and firemen!!!!!

Vote comrade's soros, van jones and obama OUT!!!!

Lets be clear, the people in the government who do the actual work, the scientists, the engineers, the hands on people, they work hard, and they make a lot less then their counterparts in private. Its the top heavy management this article is really talking about. Its the layers of management that hurt you in business. The more you have, the more it costs to do things. Same with the GOV. its not the worker bees. They are doing their best to do their job in the midst of uncertain funding and negative perceptions. Going on about "too much government workers" is painting everything with one brush.

Make all states "Right to Work"!!!!

the federal gov't is too large anyway...a lot of jobs just need to be eliminated altogether...federal employees should cough up more out of their paycks to cover the premiums on their benefits just like the rest of us in the private sector.

How about congress take a long deserved cut in wages!?!?!?!?

Not only are Federal employees income usually higher than those in a similar position in the private sector but current and retirement health and pension benefits are unaffordable. The retirement benefits and heath care afforded Congressional Representatives is far, far too generous too.

So, they look on federal workers as cash cows to pay more, but protect the top 1% from paying their fair share? They will sell the average American down the road to hell, to protect those "job creaters" that have done nothing but squirrel away money since the Bush tax cuts.

What a novel idea make the gov workers (leeches) put some skin on there retirement plan. Does that include all federal worker like all the branches of government. I think not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. The demosucks will see too it , it will never happen. They are probably the one that came up,which is the present gov. retirement plan too line there own pockets. Everybody should be in the social security plan period. If they want to supplement there retirement get a 401k plan like the regular working stiff.