A roundup of some of the comments received this week in the GovExec.com Mailbag. All comments are presented in their original, unedited form.
On Unions rally troops to head off shutdown
Do the unions understand that not only is the Government broke, but it is going in debt deeper every hour? Are they really that economically clueless?
Let's see - gov't shutdown, employee furloughed, seeks unemployment compensation, state also broke, hmmmmmm. Ok, now what?
Go for it unions. After all, a .25% cut in our expenditures that is about 40% over our income is just ridiculous. Why would anyone stand for that? (Please note the HEAVY sarcasm).
On Shutdown preparations begin
Is the same budget that should have been passed by 1 October? These guys are acting like children on the schoolyard that cant get along. If I refused to do my job....
In the event of a government shutdown, if the federal employees do not get paid for the duration of the shutdown, neither should the Congress or the President. That is leading by example!
On GOP budget resolution calls for pay freeze through 2015
And what about contractors?
This whole notion that federal employees are overpaid is absurd. The whole analysis is further discredited when the Heritage Foundation is a participant in the GOP analysis. Under this philosophy, couldn't one argue that a physician is paid an unprecendented high rate of income when compared to the rest of the employed population? Will the Republican's propose that millionare CEOs are vastly overpaid and should pay more taxes? That's the type of logic they are using.
This can be a great start to reigning in the Democrats spending spree. Freezing Federal pay is just a small part of what must be done. After all, someone said we all have to have some skin in the game....right? This is a beautiful thing. Good for Paul Ryan.
Does this pay freeze include pay for members of congress? Particularly Mr Ryan? I didn't think so. Stupid repubs want to cut everyone else's pay, but not their own.
On Shutdown's impact on pay and benefits: a primer
Sound familiar.. Huge snowstorm coming so all non-excepted can go home early, and it seems everyone declares themselves non-excepted (particularly the managers)....But with a furlough, they come out of the woodwork exclaiming they're all excepted and necessary to keep us safe.....
Many will lose a lot more than just their salary: their homes, their car, their credit ratings. Teabaggers or Dems, Elephants or Donkeys: This should be your shining hour, but, alas, like Obamacare, the cost of the "solution" is more than you can possibly imagine! For many Feds the new "F" word is "FURLOUGH!".
On Hundreds of thousands of feds face furloughs
Brilliant. Best way to keep a fragile economy just coming out of recession from fully recovering. Put a million people on furlough. Take a million people's potential spending into the economy away. Brilliant. When the private sector is weak, federal workers can help keep businesses from going completely under. Not anymore. Brilliant.
And if those "hundreds of thousands" would vote and encourage their friends and relatives to vote in each and every election, perhaps we would have a working congress and not the group we have whining and pointing fingers currently.
On No back pay for furloughed feds predicted
Can I send him my non-essential bills to pay for me?
Great. Just great. I may face bankruptcy because these jerks can't play nice together. All this over $7 billion dollars???
I am a non-essential federal employee and I do not feel that we should be penalized for something we did not create. All the government agencies submitted their 2011 budgets on time - it is up to Congress and the Senate to pass and/or make revisions, with the assistance of the agencies, to each agencies budget. We - the federal community - did not cause this and we are being penalized - how selfish of the Congress and Senate!
Once again, every federal employee, and I mean the working federal employee,GS-3 thru GS-11's and the WG-02 thru the WL-10, who don't make the 140k a year, will be punished by the people who do. It is not my fault that Congress and the White House has given so much money away, but with a furlough and no pay,or back pay, I once again a hard working employee will have to pay for what they have done.
It amazes me how a few people can play around with the lives of 900,000 people. As a result of this furlough, how many gov't employees will become homeless or possibly not be able to afford food. I've been through a furlough before with no pay AND NO HELP from outside agencies. It takes months to recover. Thank you to those who allowed others to blow our federal budget and now put the hurt on the citizens who run the country. Perhaps the President(s) who allowed this to happen should have their salaries cut off to help out.
On Exclusive survey: Feds don't know whether they'll be furloughed
Still waiting for official news from our HQ. I just don't think they know what to do. If everyone realized how much money is wasted going thru these exercises, they'd be appalled. We have contracts that can't be awarded because of the CRA. Not sure I'd want to be a contractor waiting for work from the Govt right now. Holding prices for 6 months waiting for a budget to get approved would be enough to make me withdraw my proposal. Especially when it's tying up your bonding capacity.
Hmmmm. I wonder how many of the respondents have read the PR releases from their agencies. I know that a couple of the biggies that do have funding have settled for general informational releases saying "none of us" rather than individual employee notices.