Remember the hiring freeze that wasn't going to affect the military? Team Smoothbrain does it again.

[ch33zw1z]

more shoot first, ask later thinking.

 

[sandorski]

Thread title is redundant.

 

[zinfamous]

Trump is saving money so that he can fly around on his bigly plane, guard his inbred sons on their international money laundering schemes, guard his imported wife at his gilded tower in the biggliest city, and play his bigly golf at his fugly nightmare of a resort.

1 month in and this guy has completely blown the POTUS vacation and expense budget out of the water. His one month expenses alone are probably greater than every previous president's combined.

I wonder if he is ever going to like, you know, get to work on being POTUS?

 

[Paratus]

If he leaves then the fat has been effectively trimmed. Consolidate his tasks. Government work is not rocket science.

Now to be fair I believe both George W. and Obama had hiring freezes during their terms, but were fairly short lived.

Federal worker benefits are set by congress and don't change very quickly. So something else happened that started to cause federal benefits to look better than private benefits in the 90's. I wonder what might have happened in the private workplace to worker benefits?

Hmm.....

 

[IronWing]

No government agency is "required" to spend all of their allocated budget with the exception of specific entitlements defined by law.

Pretty much all agencies are required to spend all their appropriated funds every year. Appropriations laws are laws, not suggestions.

 

[Brainonska511]

https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/federal-worker-pay
Why do they get to make more than the national average?

Why do you think that is relevant to what they do and how they should be compensated? Do you know the federal work force tends to be fairly well educated and has to live in some pretty high COL areas?

If he leaves then the fat has been effectively trimmed. Consolidate his tasks. Government work is not rocket science.

Your last statement is very telling. If you're not trolling, then you're very ignorant about what the government actually does and what kind of people it needs to do that work.

 

[dphantom]

Pretty much all agencies are required to spend all their appropriated funds every year. Appropriations laws are laws, not suggestions.

As I said, specific appropriations are required to be spent. However, if a project comes in under budget or circumstances for whatever reason change, then some funds may not be spent. O&M in particular comes to mind.

It is a normal practice for government agencies at the end of their fiscal year to buy anything imaginable to use up left over funds so they can justify maintaining their budget for the next year. I have been required to do just that.

So I am not disagreeing with you, just pointing out the blanket statement is not completely accurate.

 

[mect]

https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/federal-worker-pay



Why do they get to make more than the national average?

Because on average federal workers have higher levels of education and work in jobs that demand higher salaries than the national average? Of course, we could do a direct job to job comparison, but that would be too intellectually honest. Then you would learn that for federal jobs, yes, they do pay better if you are uneducated, but pay worse if you are highly educated. Of course, even the CBO study has some flaws, as from what I can see it doesn't account for differences in relative percentages of different jobs in each. For example, it make sense that those with only a high school diploma would earn more in the federal government than in the private sector since the federal government would include military. Do you think an army private should make the same as a mcdonalds janitor if they both have a high school diploma?

 

[MixMasterTang]

https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/federal-worker-pay



Why do they get to make more than the national average?

Because you're comparing every private sector job with government jobs. How many govt. jobs are there for food workers, walmart type greeters and farm hands?

 

[mikeymikec]

Because you're comparing every private sector job with government jobs. How many govt. jobs are there for food workers, walmart type greeters and farm hands?

Oh, I don't know, maybe soon:

"Crucifixion? Good. Out of the door, line on the left, one cross each"

 

[bshole]

Not far enough, IMHO the military budget should be cut in half. In an age of nuclear weapons, what is the point of a massive standing army? That army will never be used to engage anything other than third world countries.

I would hedge that a bit, currently the military provides one of the few career opportunities for young folks. The savings from the military cuts could be put to career programs for young folks, programs that will pay those folks a similar salary to the military, provide a meaningful skill and do something positive for the country.

Does this amount of spending seem rational?

 

[1sikbITCH]

Yet the hiring freeze was actually a good move. Many government workers make an excessive amount of money for the job they do. We need to trim the fat. Sure there will be unintended consequences but in the end it may help reduce the overhead of government.

The hiring freeze was a stupid noob move because he has no idea how to "trim the fat" so he just flings shit at the wall hoping something works. Haha what a dumbass.

That would be like saying the forum has a few assholes that need to be dealt with so we are freezing new signups. Problem solved!

 

[Brainonska511]

New Not far enough, IMHO the military budget should be cut in half. In an age of nuclear weapons, what is the point of a massive standing army? That army will never be used to engage anything other than third world countries.

I seem to recall that being the motto at the end of WWII. Then when the Korean War came along, we were caught kind of flat-footed. It's good to have capabilities between nothing and nuclear war.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Pretty much all agencies are required to spend all their appropriated funds every year. Appropriations laws are laws, not suggestions.

Many years ago, I worked at the helpdesk for a state college. There was some budget money left over, and the cio felt it was a good idea to give it back....the budget was that much less the following year. Oh? you don't need that money? Good.

 

[zinfamous]

Not far enough, IMHO the military budget should be cut in half. In an age of nuclear weapons, what is the point of a massive standing army? That army will never be used to engage anything other than third world countries.

I would hedge that a bit, currently the military provides one of the few career opportunities for young folks. The savings from the military cuts could be put to career programs for young folks, programs that will pay those folks a similar salary to the military, provide a meaningful skill and do something positive for the country.

Does this amount of spending seem rational?

Now consider that with all of that spending, we still couldn't steamroll our way through Afghanistan and Iraq--as we were assured would happen.

 

[werepossum]

http://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...g-freeze-forces-two-army-bases-to-close-child

Lots of jobs have high turnover. Oops, can't replace that child care worker that moved. Now you're understaffed, reducing efficiency and making life hell for the people that remain.

A hiring freeze is a sledgehammer, not a scalpel. It hurts people needlessly so that the fucking chuds in the administration can look tough on spending without doing the difficult work of deciding what gets cut. Nice job shitheads.

With this, I agree. It's the easy way, and the easy way is very seldom the best way.

It's ironic that Trump touts his business acumen as his main qualification, but he would never do something this stupid with his own businesses. Evidently the person(s) who says "Don't do that, that is stupid" was not brought into the White House.

 

[werepossum]

Now consider that with all of that spending, we still couldn't steamroll our way through Afghanistan and Iraq--as we were assured would happen.

Actually we did steamroll our way through Iraq. Our problem was that we had no idea what to do with it after we owned it. We could have done the same with Afghanistan, but having seen the Soviets do the same, W had enough brains to figure out not to grab that particular tiger's tail. Much better to help the less bad ones drive away the mo' bad ones.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/federal-worker-pay


Why do they get to make more than the national average?

Why are they compared to the national average instead of the average for the area in which they work?

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

The hiring freeze was a stupid noob move because he has no idea how to "trim the fat" so he just flings shit at the wall hoping something works. Haha what a dumbass.

That would be like saying the forum has a few assholes that need to be dealt with so we are freezing new signups. Problem solved!

Gotta keep the mooselims out.

 

[Jhhnn]

Actually we did steamroll our way through Iraq. Our problem was that we had no idea what to do with it after we owned it. We could have done the same with Afghanistan, but having seen the Soviets do the same, W had enough brains to figure out not to grab that particular tiger's tail. Much better to help the less bad ones drive away the mo' bad ones.

Which explains the presence of American troops in Afghanistan 16 years after the invasion, obviously.