Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I also fear for the folks at NIH who are literally saving lives. I cannot believe these morons would do it, but to impinge on the fantastic work of this agency would be a travesty. Literally saving lives.

Yep. There are many agencies that do lifesaving work. Reagan gutted the Public Health Service back as the AIDS crisis was growing. A lot of people died who could have been prevented from being infected through a robust public health approach.

Or curtailing irresponsible behavior as the gay community advocated and still advocates.

Do you really not know that that is part of what the public health people did? Educate the community about disease transmission and provide condoms?

Right. And NIAID had to fight for funding to do the necessary research and public outreach around the AIDS crises. The Reagan admin and the Congress considered AIDS not a new and deadly infectious disease, but a side effect of an immoral lifestyle. Fauci and his team chose to interact with his patients and activists to change the course of the Reagan Admin gut job.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Just a note from a citizen in the real world who pays your salaries in the form of my (hard-earned, private sector derived) tax dollars:

Half of you would never be missed.

Just a note from the world that ensures your food isn't contaminated, the flu doesn't kill you, and clean water flows into your home and private sector business: federal employees pay taxes, too.

If you want to rely on a profit-driven sector for all these basic necessities, you may be surprised by what you would miss.

Don't mean to bash the feds, but e coli kills dozens every year, the flu kills thousands and the Flint water crisis wasn't caught by the federal watchdogs either. Try again.

Exactly.

It would be much worse without the feds, and with regard to Flint, the state was the primacy agency with primary responsibility. It was actually a fed who exposed it. Without the fed blowing the whistle it could have gone on for years.

Well, there was ONE good apple.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just a note from a citizen in the real world who pays your salaries in the form of my (hard-earned, private sector derived) tax dollars:

Half of you would never be missed.

Just a note from the world that ensures your food isn't contaminated, the flu doesn't kill you, and clean water flows into your home and private sector business: federal employees pay taxes, too.

If you want to rely on a profit-driven sector for all these basic necessities, you may be surprised by what you would miss.

Don't mean to bash the feds, but e coli kills dozens every year, the flu kills thousands and the Flint water crisis wasn't caught by the federal watchdogs either. Try again.

Exactly.

It would be much worse without the feds, and with regard to Flint, the state was the primacy agency with primary responsibility. It was actually a fed who exposed it. Without the fed blowing the whistle it could have gone on for years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just a note from a citizen in the real world who pays your salaries in the form of my (hard-earned, private sector derived) tax dollars:

Half of you would never be missed.

Just a note from the world that ensures your food isn't contaminated, the flu doesn't kill you, and clean water flows into your home and private sector business: federal employees pay taxes, too.

If you want to rely on a profit-driven sector for all these basic necessities, you may be surprised by what you would miss.

Don't mean to bash the feds, but e coli kills dozens every year, the flu kills thousands and the Flint water crisis wasn't caught by the federal watchdogs either. Try again.

Exactly.

Oh for Pete's sake. How many food recalls have there been this past year that saved people from getting ill? How many of those who got ill with flu were vaccinated? How many illnessses and deaths have flu vaccines saved?

And the Flint water crisis was caused by the same sort of Republican cost saving mentality that you're espousing. In the long run it costs more to clean up the mess that sort of mentality leaves behind.

I roll my eyes when I hear people talk about "fed bloat" - in my office there are many major national programs that are run by just one or two feds. We've lost a lot of people already who have not been and can not be replaced because of hiring limits. We are all spread extremely thin.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also fear for the folks at NIH who are literally saving lives. I cannot believe these morons would do it, but to impinge on the fantastic work of this agency would be a travesty. Literally saving lives.

Yep. There are many agencies that do lifesaving work. Reagan gutted the Public Health Service back as the AIDS crisis was growing. A lot of people died who could have been prevented from being infected through a robust public health approach.

Or curtailing irresponsible behavior as the gay community advocated and still advocates.

Do you really not know that that is part of what the public health people did? Educate the community about disease transmission and provide condoms?

Anonymous wrote:No mass exodus. Feds are a very risk averse bunch. Kind of vaguely spectrum-y in the main. A hiring freeze with the aforementioned exceptions is fine.

Some agencies were already there. USAF is only hiring internal candidates and so is my agency now. The last four positions were internal only.

No mass exodus. Feds are a very risk averse bunch. Kind of vaguely spectrum-y in the main. A hiring freeze with the aforementioned exceptions is fine.

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Anonymous wrote:Oh well, good luck in the private sector. We won't be hiring you.

That's incorrect.

+1. You sure do call me a lot trying to.

Very weird post.

I'm sorry you have comprehension problems. Good luck.

I'm sorry you have anger and jealousy issues. Did your wife leave you for a fed? Hope you get a handle on them and work through it.

You really are having comprehension issues! I think you're responding to the wrong poster.

Nope.

Then you are misunderstanding someone. I'm not anti-fed. You're anger is making it hard for you to process information.

Nice deflection attempt.

No, you seriously responded to the wrong post. I think you meant the one above it. If not, then I can't see what your point is. But I'm done trying to explain this to you. I don't think we actually disagree. You're just taking it out on the wrong person.

Weird.

No one in my agency is leaving, with the exception of people who have their time in and will be leaving to go move with family because they miss their wife or kids. There are a couple women I know who live here and their families are in other places like New Hampshire or Buffalo. They were going to retire regardless, so this mass exodus thing isn't happening, it's FUD

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just a note from a citizen in the real world who pays your salaries in the form of my (hard-earned, private sector derived) tax dollars:

Half of you would never be missed.

Just a note from the world that ensures your food isn't contaminated, the flu doesn't kill you, and clean water flows into your home and private sector business: federal employees pay taxes, too.

If you want to rely on a profit-driven sector for all these basic necessities, you may be surprised by what you would miss.

Don't mean to bash the feds, but e coli kills dozens every year, the flu kills thousands and the Flint water crisis wasn't caught by the federal watchdogs either. Try again.

Exactly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh well, good luck in the private sector. We won't be hiring you.

That's incorrect.

+1. You sure do call me a lot trying to.

Very weird post.

I'm sorry you have comprehension problems. Good luck.

I'm sorry you have anger and jealousy issues. Did your wife leave you for a fed? Hope you get a handle on them and work through it.

You really are having comprehension issues! I think you're responding to the wrong poster.

Nope.

Then you are misunderstanding someone. I'm not anti-fed. You're anger is making it hard for you to process information.

Nice deflection attempt.

No, you seriously responded to the wrong post. I think you meant the one above it. If not, then I can't see what your point is. But I'm done trying to explain this to you. I don't think we actually disagree. You're just taking it out on the wrong person.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:The fed is so bloated now its ridiculous. Please... everyone start walking out the door. You won't be missed.

+1.

Finally, some serious spring cleaning.

Not really. Here's what happens under Republican administrations: more contractors. Less work performed, less oversight, more money. Great thinking, guys!

Contractors are definitely way more expensive. And the republican are looking to once again allow them to fire people for belonging to the LGBT community, which they were banned from doing under Obama.

We need some new laws in place regarding contractors - namely, that you can't quit a job paying $140,000 a year, collect a pension of $80,000, and then contract back your services as a contractor for $250,000 a year. What formerly cost taxpayers $140,000 is now costing $330,000. Multiply that scenario several hundred times, and you see the problem.

My sister's boyfriend is contemplating this very thing, He's a GS 14 earning around $125,000, and he's trying to decide whether to be a part-time contractor for the same $125,000 or continue to work full-time as a comtractor for $250,000.

Wait. I thought privatization saved the government money? That's what the GOP has been preaching for years! You mean it's actually the problem? Who knew?

Because it's not true privatization. It's just outsourcing parts of jobs that the government employees don't want to do. And because the contractors are paid by the government - taxpayers - they have all sorts of incentives to drive the labor costs up. If it were truly a private company, providing a service or product to consumers, they wouldn't be paying their employees $250,000 for a job worth less than half that.

I'm sure the previous poster was being facetious, but your response highlights some misconceptions about the federal workforce and contracting.

One is that taxpayers and consumers aren't the same thing. Taxpayers are consumers. They might not like paying for things that appear to benefit other people, but federal money just eases burden. Less federal spending just shifts burden elsewhere - to your state or local governments, to charities and volunteers, but more often it shifts to your household. You may think education policy doesn't affect you if you don't have children, but poor education limits the workforce, which limits consumption of private goods and services, and raises reliance on whatever the government provides. You may think the government should provide less, but no one wants to sit around and wait for Congress to hash it out when disease and disaster hits.

Another misconception is that outsourcing covers what government employees don't want to do. What it's actually covering is what government can't provide, usually because the budget and funding process moves too slowly for urgent need and can't keep up with innovations nor the training required to use them. In steps the private sector, which does a better job at performing some tasks, but not without cost - everything is at an outrageous mark-up - and certainly not without waste, fraud and abuse. Then there's safety and security. Edward Snowden worked for a private contractor. Likely so do the people handling your baggage at the airport.

A misconception you haven't mentioned but remains widely held, lessening the government workforce will save taxpayers money. But federal workers also pay taxes and consume from private business. Republicans shut down the government and then ran to the news cameras to complain about closed monuments on the national mall. They had no concern for private businesses large and small (and their workers) that also shut down because there was no one to inspect the meat that was supposed to be shipped to the market that had orders to fill at eating establishments that had no money to pay for said meat because the customers they relied on (tourists and federal workers) stayed home. Federal workers also buy cars and homes, food, health care, childcare and college tuition. They pay local and state taxes and make investments to public and private funds.

Limit the workforce and all that consumption drops. The answer from the right is that those jobs can be moved to the private sector and consumption/investment will go on, but the private sector has a commitment to raising profit at the top, while keeping costs as low as possible. Those costs include payroll and benefits for workers, which have been suppressed and/or eliminated. Don't expect them to level off or rise with profits. The script then flips to lower wages with fewer benefits means more workers can be hired . . . in some other developing economy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fed is so bloated now its ridiculous. Please... everyone start walking out the door. You won't be missed.

You have no idea what you are talking about. There have been long term hiring freezes.

The best way to kill trolls is to not feed them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh well, good luck in the private sector. We won't be hiring you.

That's incorrect.

+1. You sure do call me a lot trying to.

Very weird post.

I'm sorry you have comprehension problems. Good luck.

I'm sorry you have anger and jealousy issues. Did your wife leave you for a fed? Hope you get a handle on them and work through it.

You really are having comprehension issues! I think you're responding to the wrong poster.

Nope.

Then you are misunderstanding someone. I'm not anti-fed. You're anger is making it hard for you to process information.

Nice deflection attempt.