Retirement thoughts Past Present Future

[jyoutz]

Only if term limits apply to all staff and bureaucrats, too. Most of the rules (laws) we are held to are created by people who were never elected and remain regardless of who is in office. I also think any contributions given to elected officials, whether 'gifts' or 'payments' derived from speaking engagements or books that are in any way related to their role in government should be placed directly into the Treasury.

Flat sales tax (fixed rate in Amendment) is better. You can always provide benefits to the poor, but income taxes are avoided too easily. Sales taxes get the majority of the underground economy and the idle rich from other countries also contribute. It also means that if Congress wants more revenue, they need to grow the economy. Tax collection costs go down as you don't need an army of IRS agents to deal with tax returns.

Staff and cilvil service employees are who keep the government running and fulfill the mission directions established by congress and the administration. It’s currently difficult to fill vacancies in the civil service because new graduates find better pay elsewhere. If career employees were removed after so many years there would be no public services. This country tried that back in the early 1800s and it failed miserably. There are reasons that the civil service was established and those reasons are even more valid today.

 

[westcliffe01]

Staff and cilvil service employees are who keep the government running and fulfill the mission directions established by congress and the administration. It’s currently difficult to fill vacancies in the civil service because new graduates find better pay elsewhere. If career employees were removed after so many years there would be no public services. This country tried that back in the early 1800s and it failed miserably. There are reasons that the civil service was established and those reasons are even more valid today.

I think your comments are a bit out of date. In Michigan, just about any state level job pays more and has better benefits than its private sector equivalent. My wife has been working in corrections for 2 years, first at the state facility, then at a local sheriffs department. She is getting paid better than $20/hour and does not need any sort of college credits to do that. Just attend a 4-8 week academy. She gets free health care (no employee contribution) that covers both of us. In my automotive job that would never be possible if she worked and it would cost close to $900/month. She has a very flexible 401k plan, can buy just about any stock or pick from a long list of index or bond accounts. I can only buy my companies stock or else invest in a small number of index funds.

Pay raises are eye opening too. I have been getting a 2% annual increase for decades. She got a 20% increase after the first 6 months and can reach max pay for their position within 3 years. I have not come even close to max pay in my position after 20 years and with 15 US patents...

Im sure not every state is the same, but I certainly know something about my state and here the top local earners are school teachers, cops and firefighters. To think that cops and firefighters got automatic pension for life and medical for life after 20 years service ? My benefit after 20 years will be to get walked out the door...

 

[jyoutz]

I think your comments are a bit out of date. In Michigan, just about any state level job pays more and has better benefits than its private sector equivalent. My wife has been working in corrections for 2 years, first at the state facility, then at a local sheriffs department. She is getting paid better than $20/hour and does not need any sort of college credits to do that. Just attend a 4-8 week academy. She gets free health care (no employee contribution) that covers both of us. In my automotive job that would never be possible if she worked and it would cost close to $900/month. She has a very flexible 401k plan, can buy just about any stock or pick from a long list of index or bond accounts. I can only buy my companies stock or else invest in a small number of index funds.

Pay raises are eye opening too. I have been getting a 2% annual increase for decades. She got a 20% increase after the first 6 months and can reach max pay for their position within 3 years. I have not come even close to max pay in my position after 20 years and with 15 US patents...

Im sure not every state is the same, but I certainly know something about my state and here the top local earners are school teachers, cops and firefighters. To think that cops and firefighters got automatic pension for life and medical for life after 20 years service ? My benefit after 20 years will be to get walked out the door...

Torvy was referring to federal service, and most private sector jobs pay more. State governments are all over the board; some paying significantly more than the market and many paying significantly less. The fact is that there are many vacancies in the federal civil service that go unfilled. Go to USA jobs and look at the starting salaries for a civil engineer, then look at private sector engineering positions. But that’s not the point I was responding to; it was about term limiting career civil servant jobs. How would it work when a civil service engineer was term limited and new people were doing federal bridge inspections all the time? Or you take your family on vacation to a National Park and the Park is closed because employees were term limited and hard to find replacements weren’t able to be hired? Also the civil service is designed to be less affected by politics. Imagine if that federal bridge engineer or inspector were hired because they are related to a powerful politician instead of being best qualified applicant? That was how things worked in the 1800s before establishment of the federal civil service.

 

[westcliffe01]

I dont know how to see this. I started in the US with more than 10 years experience and acknowledged as an expert in my field and that was on about $66k/yr in MI. Some of these jobs are offering $94k/yr for 3 years experience and a lot of the others $66k with no required experience. So I still think that these jobs are at least paying equivalent to private sector jobs and you also have to consider your prospects of getting work in the private sector right now are very low. Im expecting another round of layoffs and of course the tech industry is laying off people at a rate previously not seen since the .com bust 20 years ago.

 

[jyoutz]

View attachment 769533

I dont know how to see this. I started in the US with more than 10 years experience and acknowledged as an expert in my field and that was on about $66k/yr in MI. Some of these jobs are offering $94k/yr for 3 years experience and a lot of the others $66k with no required experience. So I still think that these jobs are at least paying equivalent to private sector jobs and you also have to consider your prospects of getting work in the private sector right now are very low. Im expecting another round of layoffs and of course the tech industry is laying off people at a rate previously not seen since the .com bust 20 years ago.

Of course it varies around the country and even by locations within a state and both public and private salaries have bumped up the past few years after being static for awhile. But over time the traditional public/private career paths have always been the same trade off: private = higher pay but less job security in economic downturns; public = less pay but higher job security over time. When the economy is good, it’s hard to fill public positions, but everyone applies for public positions during recessions.

 

[westcliffe01]

Of course it varies around the country and even by locations within a state and both public and private salaries have bumped up the past few years after being static for awhile. But over time the traditional public/private career paths have always been the same trade off: private = higher pay but less job security in economic downturns; public = less pay but higher job security over time. When the economy is good, it’s hard to fill public positions, but everyone applies for public positions during recessions.

What you say was true until the civil service unions became the largest unions in the country. Since that time I dont believe there is parity anymore nor do I think it is ever coming back. In some locations like Colorado you have more people working for the feds than in any form of private employment.

 

[Torvy]

There are 2 types of federal employees. Bureaucrats, in my view, are those who join government service to 'make a difference'. Could be left or right, but essentially zealots who join to make things happen on the policy side. These are 'officials' with large or small policy making ability (which may be formal or informal).

The others, I call Civil Servants. Those are people who work government jobs because that's who hires people in that career field. These are most often skilled or semi-skilled positions.

I am not advocating term limiting apolitical workers. Engineers and park rangers are not typically bureaucrats, they are civil servants. I am talking about those primarily in DC who 'advise' on policy and push paper.

As for pay, while cash may not be great, the perqs are nice. My brother is a GS15. He retired as a Major, USAF and now double dips. More importantly, those in DC and a few elsewhere who use their experience in government to enrich themselves. Graft, sweetheart deals, etc. Not all money comes from salary tables.

 

[jyoutz]

What you say was true until the civil service unions became the largest unions in the country. Since that time I dont believe there is parity anymore nor do I think it is ever coming back. In some locations like Colorado you have more people working for the feds than in any form of private employment.

Colorado does has the Denver federal center and Denver has long been known as the DC of the west. Federal unions are prohibited by law from bargaining about pay and are pretty much toothless. Few federal employees pay much attention to them. If pay were at parity with private industry, the government wouldn’t have trouble filling skilled professional positions. In my field (forestry) my counterparts working for forest industry make considerably more than me. But I prefer managing federal lands because of the diversity of the job. Instead of just growing trees for boards and paper, we are involved with fire management, wildlife management, and lots of other things that I find interesting. And we also manage rough wild lands, not just forest farms, that I also find interesting. Of course we do also manage stands for forest products. So people choose career paths based on satisfaction and not just annual income.

 

[jyoutz]

There are 2 types of federal employees. Bureaucrats, in my view, are those who join government service to 'make a difference'. Could be left or right, but essentially zealots who join to make things happen on the policy side. These are 'officials' with large or small policy making ability (which may be formal or informal).

The others, I call Civil Servants. Those are people who work government jobs because that's who hires people in that career field. These are most often skilled or semi-skilled positions.

I am not advocating term limiting apolitical workers. Engineers and park rangers are not typically bureaucrats, they are civil servants. I am talking about those primarily in DC who 'advise' on policy and push paper.

As for pay, while cash may not be great, the perqs are nice. My brother is a GS15. He retired as a Major, USAF and now double dips. More importantly, those in DC and a few elsewhere who use their experience in government to enrich themselves. Graft, sweetheart deals, etc. Not all money comes from salary tables.

I am familiar with the GS-15 SES (senior executive service) federal employees. A very unique group of people that congress established as a blend of the civil service and patronage employees. They are intended to focus on policy issues and of course that includes the political flavor of the day. I worked at agency headquarters in DC for a year for those people. The exposure to “how the sausage is made” was interesting to me, but I desired to get back to the field to actually manage the land. And that’s what the vast majority of the civil service does: keep the trains running using professional skills. I work with other foresters, wildlife biologists, civil engineers, hydrologists, loggers, etc… not politicians. The political folks establish broad direction that does change from administration to administration and congress to congress. But the core of mission direction changes very little over time. For my agency, congress passed the National Forest Management Act in 1976, and this is still the overarching direction for the mission of our agency, no matter how the winds blow. There may be people at the SES level who do find ways to enrich themselves through corrupt endeavors. They were intended to be a mix of political and career people, so they no doubt have opportunities for corruption that most civil servants don’t. I suspect this is very true in the defense department where weapons contractors influence billions and billions of dollars. I think we are in complete agreement regarding the differences between civil servants and other types of people on the federal payroll, but I also know SES people who are passionate about their professional integrity and the mission of the agencies they represent. The vast majority of federal employees are career civil servants doing professional jobs without regard to politics. And the vast majority are grade GS-11 or below.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Colorado does has the Denver federal center and Denver has long been known as the DC of the west. Federal unions are prohibited by law from bargaining about pay and are pretty much toothless. Few federal employees pay much attention to them. If pay were at parity with private industry, the government wouldn’t have trouble filling skilled professional positions. In my field (forestry) my counterparts working for forest industry make considerably more than me. But I prefer managing federal lands because of the diversity of the job. Instead of just growing trees for boards and paper, we are involved with fire management, wildlife management, and lots of other things that I find interesting. And we also manage rough wild lands, not just forest farms, that I also find interesting. Of course we do also manage stands for forest products. So people choose career paths based on satisfaction and not just annual income.

It finally rained enough to put out the Cedar Creek fire. It was never contained. The terrain made it impossible. It was a busy fire season for the Forest Service, and I bet they're humping to do a mitigation survey before snow. I have great respect for the people who keep the country running in the background. I have less good to say about US Treasury phone operators.