Trump, Clinton or none of the above?
Are most Washington-area federal workers Republicans or Democrats? Senior Correspondent Mike Causey, the world's leading authority on civil servants, says the...
Many politicians of both parties seem to believe that the majority of federal and postal workers tend to vote Democratic.
House Republicans, in recent years, have made life miserable for feds working for the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration. They’ve gone after the IRS because they think they played politics with the tax-exempt status of tea party groups. Despite a rapidly aging population and the third-rail rule of American politics: Social Security, touch it and you die! SSA’s funding has been reduced to the point where the commissioner is warning of possible furloughs in the fall.
Democrats cooked up the “sequestration” monster that — aided by venality and stupidity on both sides — produced furloughs where some employees lost 20 percent of pay, followed by a shutdown that locked non-emergency employees out (and closed national parks) even though employees eventually got paid for doing nothing. The White House proposed a two-year federal pay freeze, which congressional Republicans happily extended for a third year.
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Most of the experts on the political leanings of federal workers never were federal workers. They are economists, pollsters, reporters, partisan politicians, business types, anything but feds. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! So what do feds think? Last week, we asked readers where they thought they would be this time next year, eight months into the Trump or Clinton administration? We got some interesting comments and here are some more:
In response to your question, I don’t see good things if either is elected.
Since Donald Trump is a businessman and most companies no longer offer employee benefits, I expect him to push for this change to government employees, also. The benefits are the number-one reason I worked for and stayed with the Department of Defense for 26 years. I could have made double the pay as a contractor. Trump wants to immediately repeal Obamacare with no replacement and cause millions of people to be uninsured. Business owners will no longer be required to carry health insurance, so they will cancel their coverage as soon as possible and never share the profits with their employees. You won’t be able to walk into an ER anymore because that is the only place all those uninsured individuals will be able to get care. Don’t have a heart attack. You’ll have to wait in a long line to be treated!
If Clinton is elected, I see the continuation of the lack of cooperation between Congress and the White House. I have continued to argue with everyone that Congress is the problem, not Obama, but I’m certain they will reelect every incumbent. I only hope someone finally figures out term limits are desperately needed.
I am the first to admit the government is dysfunctional. I witnessed the Air Force spend $5,000 to ship special floor paint to NAS Keflavik Iceland to paint their supply warehouse floor before an inspection.
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Really, floor paint? Also, I took voluntary early retirement from the Air Force civil service in June 2015, and I’m still fighting OPM to correct my retirement pay. They admitted the error but won’t make the correction and give me the back pay. I may have to hire a lawyer to get the error corrected. I can’t wait until I’m eligible for Social Security and Medicare.
By the way, I accepted early retirement after the fourth offer in one year. The new grading system is pass/fail and veterans get preference over other civilians, no matter how long they have worked or how excellent their performance. I saw myself getting RIF’d into a lower graded job I knew nothing about. In my current position, I was the Air Force expert. A reduction in grade could have affected my retirement pay and my TSP contributions. Since I only lived 8 miles from my office, a move to another location would have required additional travel time and possibly paying to park. I just could not see the upside to staying. Instead, I moved to Florida, pay no state tax, and pay $600 less for a larger apartment.
All the government needs is the ability to terminate poor-performing employees. I saw too many of them in my years working for the DoD.
People should want to work for the government because it offers great pay and benefits, not because they can’t be fired! — Theresa Mitchell
I think that all hell would break loose if Trump gets elected and we still have a Republican majority in both houses. All the budget cutting for Social Security and IRS that has been going on for over five years now would continue with service to the public further down the drain, and billions more in lost revenue contributing to the deficit. All the crap that Republicans have been trying to pull to harm not just federal employees, but, the nation as a whole, would have no POTUS check to veto their detrimental legislation. I can only hope that voters will come to their senses and vote out the idiots up and down the ticket.” — Tired Old Fed
I hope people don’t forget the dark side of the Clinton (Bill) years for federal workers. First, he killed FEPCA, the bipartisan law that would have gradually raised federal pay over a dozen years to provide “comparability” with similar private sector jobs. He proposed a zero percent pay raise the first year. A coalition headed by Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and Tom Davis (R-Va.) outflanked him. And they did it year after year. Afterward, he proposed raises that were far short of the comparability formula. George W. Bush followed suit. Clinton downsized the government by nearly 300,000 jobs. Some people were RIFed (fired). Operations like HR were decimated and some have never recovered. Many jobs were farmed out to the private sector. There is no reason to believe Hillary Clinton would repeat history. On the other hand, there is no reason to believe she wouldn’t.” — Long Memory
Nearly Useless Factoid
One of the earliest references to the concept of “not shooting the messenger” can be traced back to Plutarch’s Lives “The first messenger, that gave notice of Lucullus‘ coming was so far from pleasing Tigranes that, he had his head cut off for his pains; and no man dared to bring further information. Without any intelligence at all, Tigranes sat while war was already blazing around him, giving ear only to those who flattered him.”
Source: Wikipedia
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Mike Causey
Mike Causey is senior correspondent for Federal News Network and writes his daily Federal Report column on federal employees’ pay, benefits and retirement.
Follow @mcauseyWFED