Sequester Makes Feds Angry, Sad

Today, the day the "sequestration" begins, the Washington Post, the house organ of the Democratic Party and the permanent bureaucracy has a front page story on the angst the federal workers are feeling about the cuts, and likely furloughs to come:

Government workers anxious about furloughs, sequestration but also effects of bashing

“It’s an extremely threatening and highly insulting condition to find myself in,” said a National Defense University professor who lives in Mantua and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of his high-level security clearance. “It’s one thing to hear the constant negative drumbeat directed at federal workers from people outside Washington. It’s another thing to have the threat of denial of livelihood.”..

“You don’t want the highways?” he vented. “You’re against food inspections? You farmers don’t need the help from the Agriculture Department? You want to get rid of the people who protect you from terrorists?”

That felt pretty good, but he’s under no illusion that he changed minds. Federal workers say they share the rest of the country’s frustration with declining standards of living, dim prospects for the next generation and political division. But they don’t see what good could come of putting federal workers on furlough when the economy’s in such a fragile state.

In the loyal opposition paper, the Washington Times comes this counter story:

FOIA finds two NLRB lawyers making way over $100k, but not for doing government work

Among much else, the ALG found, according to its NetRightDaily web site, two NLRB attorneys making far in excess of $100,000. But they aren't working for the NLRB, they are working on "official time" for the federal employee union that represents the board's workers.

"These are employees whose official job is to handle internal NLRB union activities exclusively, rather than carrying out any of the NLRB's official responsibilities," NetRightDaily's Brad Tidwell.

"Bert Pearlston, General Attorney (Labor) for the NLRB, made $141,726.00 per year, and Steven Sloper, Labor Management Relations Examiner made $116,240.00. With the national median salary at $40,300 and unemployment of 7.9%, jobs like these would be highly sought in the private sector," Tidwell said.

Other NLRB employees are also paid official time for part-time work on union matters, for an amount totalling in excess of $510,000, according to Tidwell, who also found that NLRB is the federal agency with the highest per-capita use of official time among all federal departments and agencies.

The sequester is the worst possible means of cutting government spending, except for all the other means the various branches of the government has proposed.  Increasing taxes, as the Obama administration insists is part of the "fair and balanced" deficit reduction increase they seem to insist on is like giving an addict another hit to get him on the bus to rehab.

The proposed cuts reductions in increases in planned spending are trivial, but badly aimed. I have a friend who works as a civilian for DOD; his job is literally to decide whether military planes are safe to fly.  He will probably to be furloughed 20%, one day a week, because the sequester, designed by Jack Lew for Barack Obama, specifically targets DOD for larger cuts, and exempts substantial portions of their costs from the sequester.  Is that a sensible use of resources?

Federal workers have done pretty well through the "deprecession."  While COLAs have been frozen, increases in pay due to automatic advances in rank have not, and more have been hired, while the private sector has lost both total numbers of jobs, and buying power.

Federal workers tend to perceive any attempt to rein in spending as a personal attack on their worth.  But to address the unnamed professor, no I don't want to cut food inspection, but yes, I do think that farm subsidies should be eliminated.  Let the market determine the price of food, and don't hide it in federal payments.  And please, let's not pay for lawyers to work for the already well funded labor unions.  There are places for the government to legitimately cut.