[Government Executive] See where and how Biden grew the federal workforce

Government jerbs was one way to juice the employment payrolls to fool anyone who wanted to believe the economy was strong.

Totally unsustainable and ****ed up short term thinking at the expense of future generations who have to pay it all off.

I don't expect republicans to be much better at not running up ginormous debts but here we are.

 

Don't disagree with boosting numbers. But, give me a break about "paying it all off". Government salaries are low compared to the private sector.

 

So what about the tax cuts, no republican here ever wants to talk about the tax cuts. At least when Dems add to the debt, its to help people. And Biden didnt even add more debt than Trump and his stupid tax cuts.

 

State and local pay more overall benefits than private

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.nr0.htm?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Employer costs for employee compensation for civilian workers averaged $46.84 per hour worked in
September 2024, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Wages and salaries averaged
$32.25, while benefit costs averaged $14.59. (See tables 1 and 2.)

Total employer compensation costs for private industry workers averaged $44.40 per hour worked in
September 2024. Wages and salaries averaged $31.25 per hour worked and accounted for 70.4 percent of
employer costs, while benefit costs averaged $13.15 per hour worked and accounted for the remaining
29.6 percent. (See tables 1 and 4.)

Total employer compensation costs for state and local government workers averaged $62.92 per hour
worked in September 2024. Wages and salaries averaged $38.86 and accounted for 61.8 percent of employer
costs, while benefit costs averaged $24.06 and accounted for 38.2 percent. (See tables 1 and 3.)

Total employer compensation costs for private industry workers in establishments with less than 50
workers averaged $35.27 per hour worked in September 2024. Wages and salaries averaged $26.39, while
benefit costs averaged $8.88. In establishments with 500 workers or more, total employer compensation
costs averaged $64.48 per hour worked. Wages and salaries averaged $42.18, while benefit costs
averaged $22.31. (See table 6.)

There are tradeoffs... painting it as one sided vs private wages gives the impression they all do it for the civil service at "slave wages".

As for paying it all off, I'm fine with baby steps of not running a deficit, let alone trillions plus debt every year.

 

Of course, you have to incentivize people to do this work somehow if you can't compete with pay. That isn't to say all the jobs deserve to exist, but I don't think cutting them en masse is a silver bullet. The vast majority of federal spending is defense, Medicare, and Social Security. Nobody will touch those.

We have to raise taxes on higher earners and capital gains at some point. This idea that we can have the society we want without paying for it is misguided.

 

Agreed. I don't think we'll see any meaningful reform until the largest demographic that happens to also be the largest retiree class loosens their grip on politics and economic policy.

Trillions plus pension funds, 401k and large asset fund mgrs are all chasing yields promised in the 80s while rate policy for the last 2 decades hovered mostly around 2-4%

The average age of a homebuyer is now 56.

So much for downgrading to a smaller empty nest.

 

One of the main causes of the French Revolution was that Louis used to "sell" lifetime exemptions from taxes to the richest people in France (the church, who was the largest land owner in France, had a similar deal).

The top 1% of income earners would pay a nominal one-time fee and never have to pay taxes again. I mean, Louis was a profligate spender, and spent a ton more on wars, too, but almost all of the state revenue came from taxing peasants, and when the peasants found out all the money was gone...

 

Biden's handlers were much more discreet.

 

President Musk needs to stop treating the federal government like a startup...

 

As a now retired fed, here's how comments about my job went over the course of my career:

Whenever there was a downturn in the economy, I was one of the lucky ones who had a cushy government job.
Whenever the economy was booming, I was stupid for working for the government instead of making real money.
Always, I was ridiculed for being a fed--even from family.

In my early years, I downplayed it and would not really engage, then Oklahoma City happened and I became more forceful defending federal employees and my job.

I'm one of those who made slightly higher than the average--even had a couple of years where thanks to overtime from lots of fires, I cracked 6 figures.

But what would you pay a team of 7 people who had the responsibility for thousands of lives, tens of millions of dollars in equipment, and billions worth of infrastructure. Not to mention invaluable natural resources? What would you pay them to work 16 hours a day for 2-3 weeks straight and sleep in a tent regardless of weather? And then do it several times a year while being constantly on call, missing birthdays and anniversaries and holidays, and not ever having traditional family vacations during the summer?

Our average regular salary was around $80k. And that's just my little corner of fed world.

What about a group who do biological research that saves billions by preventing crop failures or the folks in the tower that do a hell of a job keeping planes from crashing or the food inspectors that remove the worry of dying from the food we eat or the doctors that treat veterans or the park ranger that spends a little extra time to talk about bison with your kid or a colonel in charge of a sensitive defense program or the curator that preserves historical documents? What would you pay them?

During his first term, Trump got briefed by a military guy and was asked what he made. Trump assumed the guy made $650,000 (IIRC). By law, no regular worker/non-political appointee can make more than $195,000 a year. That includes overtime. The number making that is few and is limited to top-tier scientists and the tip-top of career agency leadership.

Many feds are driven not by money, but by service and mission--the level of educational attainment is probably higher in many fed offices than in the private sector. Sure, there are some lesser performers and the occasional crooked type, but there are in any large org. The majority are conscientious public servants who abide by all the ethics, laws, and practices expected of public servants. All the while being buffeted by the political world and changing administrations with a few shutdowns thrown in for good measure.

One thing though--as talented as they are individually, most feds are introverts (there are studies), which may be a reason they find public service attractive and many have a suite of skills and knowledge (and ethics) that are not easily transferable to the private sector. Right now, we are about to jettison an enormous amount of expertise and experience for no good reason. It is not easily replaced.

One side has done a great job of making the public think of all federal employees as the worst caricature of the slowest ever DMV branch. That's not my experience. At all.

 

so says the parrot that had regurgitated the meaningless / false narrative, " the fed is wrecking its balance sheet"

 

I think it’s not inherently right or wrong, It’s entirely dependent on the jobs being given or taken and their value for the American people.

If Biden did an infrastructure program and that leads to people hired to fix roads in an appropriate manner that seems hypothetically reasonable. Improved infrastructure gives a high ROI and is mostly agreed to be a good value for the country.

Conversely if Trump sees that military spending is too high in some areas and that isn’t giving reasonable value to the country and wants to cut it, that’s seems hypothetically reasonable as well.

That article focuses on the VA, most people approve of more funding for veterans even if it isn’t a profitable government dollar spent ROI situation so there are things like that as well.

Article says fed grew by 2% under Trump and 6% under Biden, so a 4% difference in growth here. Given that this Admin is aimlessly trying to reduce all government jobs with blanket buyouts, it doesn’t seem exactly based in reason.

 

Right, and it comes down to, do you think the current admin is trimming with precision and reason here or not. At least that’s where the article leads the discussion, not your question above it.

 

Having the boards biggest BiDenOmics b**** ride my nuts rent free about parroting false narratives is always a vindication of whatever I wrote.

 

I also question to what benefit routing out whatever corruption lays is really for, and what will replace whatever that is in its absence.

I have a really hard time believing Elon and Trump are doing these things for the benefit of everyday American people. Maybe that’s my derangement syndrome showing, but my intuition is not where my hope is.

 

At minimum, justify savings in place for front loaded tax cuts

 

I mean, let’s begin with the basics (yes, this is a generalization, but no one has the time for every detail, nor do they really care about them).

Why is it considered inappropriate to adjust the government workforce based on new laws - with proper oversight - under the obligation to faithfully execute the law?

Yet, why is it deemed acceptable to expand or shrink government agencies and their workforce based on executive dictate, without oversight, and in defiance of the Constitution’s requirement to faithfully execute the laws?