Hits on federal retirement advance as bill is introduced to fire feds for no cause at all

[ehrnst]

House Republicans greeted current and future federal employees with two controversial body blows in recent days — one amounts to a pay cut and the other would allow new feds to be fired for “no cause at all.”

The House Budget Committee approved a spending plan that would save the government $163.5 billion over 10 years by taking that amount from federal employees. They would pay that in the form of “greater contributions to their own defined benefit retirement plans,” according to the panel’s budget document.

Republicans call their plan “Building a Better America.” But the Americans now working to build a better country through their federal jobs would be called on to sacrifice again, as they have repeatedly over the years.

“Since 2010, these employees have already lost $182 billion in pay and benefits,” Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said in a letter to the committee. Those losses occurred through measures including a partial three-year pay freeze and previous retirement hits under the Obama administration.

Rep. Anthony G. Brown (D-Md.) offered legislation on Monday to repeal the previous retirement cuts. Don’t expect his bill to pass, not with this Congress.

Future federal employees could lose their jobs much more easily under legislation introduced by Rep. Todd Rokita (R-Ind.). He wants all new feds to be considered at-will employees, meaning they “may be removed/suspended without notice or right to appeal for good cause, bad cause, or no cause at all,” according to a summary of the legislation.

This represents no understanding that civil service protections are designed to protect not just staffers, but also the public from a government bureaucracy riven with political favoritism, as was the case under the spoils system. Even members of Congress eager to fire feds faster must know that this drastic proposal runs afoul of a basic and long-standing principle that says government staffers should be protected from willy-nilly punishment by political operatives.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/07/21/hits-on-federal-retirement-advance-as-bill-is-introduced-to-fire-feds-for-no-cause-at-all/

[Hugin]

1. K&R

[MineralMan]

2. The goal is obviously to be able to fire federal employees for

political reasons. This is a disgusting, disgraceful idea.

[AJT]

3. There's no better way to destroy the government than from the inside.

[ehrnst]

4. Yep, and to do that, you have to portray all "feds" as corrupt, overpaid and

underproducing.

The GOP is making that case.... and unfortunately many on the far left are as well.

Our government is large, and there are huge numbers of actual civil servants in it - who do what they need to to keep the wheels turning.

[Freethinker65]

5. Deconstruction of the administrative state

Intentional dysfunction of government leading to a complete dismantling of everything the United States was built on.

[lunasun]

8. Bannon's declared objective. He is not alone in wanting this to happen

[SWBTATTReg]

6. Hits on federal benefits and pay

Welcome to the real world.

This is nothing new to those of us in the private sector. Businesses have been revamping defined benefit plans for quite some time, eliminating or reducing benefits and migrating more and more to self-directed 401Ks, etc., and similar type of plans for some time.

At-will has been around too, for some time in the private sector.

There does need to be protections though, for 'willy-nilly' (I like this word!) retaliation for any political cause (must be clearly defined as to what constitutes a 'political cause'), for this seems to occur pretty regularly when we have change of political parties, e.g., witness the dismissal of all the US Attorney Generals when Trump came in (this has happened too before, w/ other elections/presidents too, unfortunately). This whole process is screwed up, and rewards incompetence too much, when politics interferes too much, w/ logic.

'Willy-nilly' retaliation seems to happen also during off-election years (retaliation is threatened if something is done to the contrary of what Congress or the President wishes (this is what happening now, w/ Trump)).

Unfortunately, the 'willy-nilly' political cause dismissals results in reducing valued federal employee experience that takes years and years to develop (no wonder these guys jump to the private sector if given a chance).

This is one reason among many as to why the federal bureaucracy seems to get worse and worse (according to us on the outside). Another reason the federal bureaucracy seems to get worse is that Congress and the executive branch pass or write totally incompetent laws or directives, resulting in massive confusion, for those downstream trying to figure out what's actually desired.

There are truly many, many, many dedicated and experienced federal workers (my Mom was one), and it is a shame that this negative perception of the federal bureaucracy is due to no fault of theirs.

No cause firing should be clearly exempt from political causes, and penalties should be swift and uncompromising. Period. Allow the normal recourse available to the private sector employee today (under the at-will concept), and if judgment prevails for a federal employee wrongly terminated, then the federal government should not be exempt from penalties, and pay the full price as those in the private sector do. Heck, when we accidently bomb someone overseas, and pay millions of $, why not this too?

Patronage of all types should be eliminated totally, and jobs should be awarded solely on merits and abilities of candidates. Use a career path concept as so many in the private sector do, and thus ensure that the best candidates are chosen for a particular job.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

7. Fire for no cause strikes at the heart of an independent bureaucracy. Great way to dump talent.

People can rise accumulating much experience and knowledge and then just as they get to the point of applying it in a big way they can be fired because some 32 yr old WH staffer doesn't like their party contributions.