While private sector companies and local governments are cutting retirement and health care benefits for their employees, the federal government, the largest employer in the country, is doing just the opposite.
As if they had something to worry about, on July 31st the Federal Diary published an article titled “Mounting Retirement Worries” which every American should read if they can keep from puking.
The feds are worried about the impending baby-boomer retirement and that they may not have experienced people to fill crucial jobs. As an example, they point out how FEMA (Failing Everyone Miserably Again) “suffered from lax staffing practices in the months before hurricane Katrina.” Isn’t that something? I suppose the parent Department of Homeland Security, with its 180,000 employees, suffers the same malady.
One solution from the Office of Personnel Management is to let retirees come back to work part time without a pay cut. In other words, they will still be getting their full exorbitant pensions while back working at their pay scale. All the people on Social Security but still working should be able to appreciate that bit of chicanery.
The fed is concerned about “double dipping” and that’s why these returning workers are called “part timers.” But there is no restriction on how many hours they can work or how much they can earn, and they can end up with greater pay than when they were salaried, plus getting their full pension every month. The feds call this their modified “retire rehire” plan and claim it's important to keep these retirees from being gobbled up by lobbyist firms and private companies anxious to gain their insider "expertise."
Obviously, the federal government does not do what every successful private company in the country does – train younger people to take over. It may also be that the higher-ups and supervisors in government keep operational secrets from their fellow workers and don’t share procedures with underlings in order to maintain their power, status, and position. Either that or our "transparent" government has so many confidential and secret operations that rising younger employees don't know what's going on and are considered possible leakers.
You should remember that the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) is the second largest retirement plan run by the government, second only to Social Security, and that it’s in “the red” every month of every year. Contributions from the millions of current federal employees are never enough to cover outlays to the currently retired. Unlike Social Security that constantly produces a surplus; FERS cannot sustain itself and is supported by taxpayers. In the private sector, it would be a failed and defunct insurance business (see history).
Every September, and at taxpayer expense, the FERS program receives a mysterious and magical bonus of twenty billion or more that is always enough to put the entire fund ahead for the year. This annual bonus makes it almost as ludicrous as the Federal Employees Life & Health plan that never has any income at all, spends millions per month, and increases the more taxpayer money it spends (see history).
I wonder how all of the working stiffs in Detroit being laid off and forced into early retirement while having their retirement and health care benefits slashed feel about the lawmakers and their staffs living high off the hog after contributing little cash or nothing at all during their white collar working lives?
Long live the oligarchy.