With the nation about to get a new president, a popular Washington occupation, i.e. visionaries-who-can predict-the-future, is growing faster than the number of Americans who are becoming Uber drivers. Being farsighted has a long and noble (sort of) history. Up to a point.

In ancient Greece, people with enough coin consulted the Oracle at Delphi to find out what was going to happen down the road. Everything from life expectancy to who was going to be lucky with dice. The Romans adopted the practice of consulting seers. The more upscale used priestesses of Vesta, the Goddess of the Hearth. The primary job description for those who looked into the future was that they be female. And virgins. And to remain so for at least 30 years.

Washington has its own version of the ancient art of seeing into the future. With a welcome upgrade. Nowadays we don’t make a big deal out of the virgin thing. Which is probably just as well for reasons best saved for another day. Anyhow, business is booming as never, ever before. But the clock is ticking, because reality is about to set in.

Since Donald Trump surprised just about everybody by winning both the GOP nomination and the presidency, people who have the ability to see into the future are in great demand. The 24/7 news cycle, the increase in “fake” news, the daily, sometimes hourly duels via Twitter have turned amateur crystal-ball gazers into experts. In America, where everybody is supposed to get a second chance, even the folks who predicted the 2016 election would be between Ben Carson and Jill Stein, have recovered. They are now out there telling us what’s next! You gotta love this country, right?

The luckiest — and most numerous of the 2017 soothsayers — hate our future POTUS with a passion. They predict all manner of bad things, from inflation and higher taxes to maybe war (pick a country), massive family-splitting deportations and changing the name of Pennsylvania Avenue to Wall Street. Pro-Trump vestals don’t have as wide an audience partly because of his low (already) approval ratings and also because bad news trumps (no pun intended) good news almost every time.

Current and former federal and postal workers are also hearing plenty of targeted bad news. Among the predictions they are hearing and reading: pay raises will be frozen. Hiring will be stopped, meaning lots more work for those still on the payroll. Future hires could be a sorry, scared lot if Congress dumps civil service rules and makes them “at will” employees. Meaning they could be fired almost anytime, for any reason. Oh, and also Congress might revive an 1876-vintage gem that would allow any member of Congress to cut the salary of any member of the federal civil service. Down to as little as $1 per year, which was a personal budget-buster even in the 19th century. With $1 per year, people couldn’t even afford a cup from Starbucks, much less a cup with something in it.

Or not.

While the predictions of (bad) things to come may be true, they may also be way off. As in totally wrong. Some long-suffering civil servants have been waiting four, five, some as many as eight or nine presidents for the other shoe to drop. For the worst to happen. Which it mostly hasn’t, despite regular dire annual reports.

So what are the real threats to feds and what are the likelihood they will become law? Today on our Your Turn radio show, our guest will be Greg Stanford of the Federal Managers Association. He’ll talk about the pay and hiring freeze forecasts, the threat to federal civil service retirement benefits as well as things groups representing feds can work with the new president and Congress. That’s 10 a.m. EST either streaming live at Federal News Radio or in the DC metro area at WFED 1500 AM.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Michael O’Connell

When the X-Men comic book debuted in 1963, the team of super-powered mutants included Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman, Marvel Girl and Professor X.

Source: Wikipedia

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