Archive for the ‘Federal Government’ Category

Gallup: Americans sour on government agencies…

October 20, 2021

Yesterday, we posted that, according to Gallup, a majority of Americans say the government is doing too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses.

Wonder why?

Well, another Gallup survey highlights the underlying reason why Americans want the Federal government to do less.

Bottom line: Americans do not think that most government agencies are doing a particularly good job … and. across the board, they think that the agencies’ performance is weakening,

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Takeaways

Based on people rating agencies’ performance positively, i.e.  as doing an excellent of good job…

> Only NASA is sustaining its rating … and that agency has outsourced much of its work to Bezos and Musk

> The performance ratings of ALL other agencies dropped between  2020 and 2021

> Only 3 agencies — NASA, USPS and the Secret Service — now get majority positive ratings.

> Both the USPS and Secret Service ratings dropped by double digits … 17 and 14 percentage points, respectively.

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Healthcare Agencies

> The CDC had the biggest drop … 24 percentage points … from 64% to a 40% rating the agency’s performance as excellent or good.

> Comparably, the FDA and VA are down to 40% and 36% respectively.

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Security & Law Enforcement

> In 2020: the FBI, DHS and CIA all had a majority rating their performance as excellent or good.

> But, all 3 of those agencies dropped by double digits between 2020 and 2021 … the CIA dropped 19 points (from 60% to 41%) … the FBI dropped 13 points (from 57% to 44%) … and DHS dropped 13 points (from 55% to 42%)

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Defense & State Depts.

> Neither Defense nor State were rated in 2020

> in 2021, the Defense Dept. performance was rated positively by 46%

> In 2021, the State Dept. rating was rated excellent of good by only 32% … putting the State Dept. last among the 15 key Federal agencies.

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Bottom Line

As the WSJ would say:

“If President Biden wants to understand why his $3.5 trillion entitlement spending plan is stalled in Congress, he might look at the new polls from Gallup.”

Seriously, what rational person would give a gang that can’t shoot straight a virtual blank check ($3.5 trillion) … and expect much good to happen.

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Burst the bubble !

December 4, 2019

High time to decentralize the government … at least geographically
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I’ve long been a proponent of moving some (or many) Federal government agencies out of Washington to other locales … e.g. cities & states that have been upended by globalization-induced deindustrialization.

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The idea has often been floated, but rejected.

The usual arguments: (1) Gov’t employees — especially departmental honchos — need to be geographically co-located in order to coordinate services and activities across agencies (2) The gov’t has already amassed a formidable network of real estate holdings in DC (think: offices) (3) there is a massive organization of gov’t employees (note that I try to avoid the term “government workers”)  up and operating. 

But, the idea of decentralizing the Federal government seems to be gaining some momentum…

(more…)

Posted in Federal Government, Government Employees | 2 Comments »

Good work if you can get it … Is the Federal pay czar asleep at the switch … or, what?

December 14, 2009

Bottom line: Now, I’m less worked up about the Goldman bonuses.  At least those guys work more than 37-1/2 hours a week … with emphasis added to the word “work”.

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Excerpted from: USA TODAY For feds, average pay $30,000 over private sector, Dec. 8, 2009 

The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded.

Excluding the White House, Congress, the Postal Service, intelligence agencies and uniformed military personnel,there are more than 2 million federal employees.  

One of every five Federal employees makes a salary of more than $100,000 —  before overtime pay, bonuses and benefits are counted. For example, in the Transportation Department, 1,690 employees have salaries above $170,000.

[Note that even USA Today says “makes”, not “earns”.]

The average federal worker’s pay is $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector.

 [Note that if 2 million Federal employees’ average pay was cut back to the private sector average, it would free up $60 billion per year … roughly equal to the tax hikes hikes and /or Medcare cuts being proposed to fund ObamaCare … hmmm] 

Key reasons for high pay:

• Pay hikes. Then-president Bush recommended — and Congress approved — across-the-board raises of 3% in January 2008 and 3.9% in January 2009. President Obama has recommended 2% pay raises in January 2010. Most federal workers also get longevity pay hikes — called steps — that average 1.5% per year.

[OK.  Back out 10.4% in “Bush’s fault” pay increases, and the average Federal employee only snags 58% more than a private sector worker.  Feel better?]

• New pay system. Congress created a new National Security Personnel System for the Defense Department to reward merit, in addition to the across-the-board increases. The merit raises, which started in January 2008, were larger than expected and rewarded high-ranking employees.

[In other words, they get paid more because they get paid more.  Huh?]

• Pay caps eased. Many top civil servants are prohibited from making more than an agency’s leader. But if Congress lifts the boss’ salary, others get raises, too. 

[To repeat, they get paid more because they get paid more.] 

• Specialized skills. The federal workforce is highly paid because the government employs skilled people such as scientists, physicians and lawyers.

[Quick fix: Lose the lawyers.] 

Full article:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20091211/1afedpay11_st.art.htm?loc=interstitialskip&POE=click-refer

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