'I am become government, the destroyer of worlds'
Lots of stuff about the excesses of "greedy" government workers gorging at the public trough in this piece.
A full page ad in today's Wall Street Journal carries a powerful message from Free Enterprise Nation. It is a self-described non-partisan, private-sector advocacy group that lobbies for free markets. Its first task, aside from fundraising, is educating private sector employees about the outrageous excesses of government workers. Salaries, benefits, overall expenditures -- any metric you could name -- are on suicidal trajectories.
The chickens control not only the hen-house, but the whole damn farm as well.
Wages
• One state of California pensioner retired with an annual salary of $500,000 a year.
• An Illinois driver's traning teacher earned $170,000 a year before retiring with an annual pension of $130,000.
• A Department of Energy administrator received a $63K bonus on top of his $172K base bay.
• Federal civilian wages average around $80K, while private sector wages average $50K.
• Between 2000 and 2008, wages for federal civilian workers rose 54% versus $28% for private sector workers.
• The U.S. government paid more than a third of a billion dollars in bonuses in fiscal year 2008.
• In 2008, 40% of all workers for the bankrupt city of Vallejo, California, were paid more than $100K annually.
• The state of New York paid $460,000,000 in overtime in 2007.
• A New York "Developmental Aide" worked enough overtime to earn $111K even though her base salary was $39K.
• In Illinois, 420 physical education teachers make over $100K, with the top one earning $163,000.
• Also in Illinois, 332 English teachers earn over $100K, with the highest paid at $164,000.
• And 94 drivers education teachers make over $100K. The highest paid is $170,000.
Benefits
• Comparing combined wages and benefits, federal workers average $120K versus $60K for the private sector.
• This places the value of benefits for federal workers at $40K annually, four times that of the private sector.
• Only 12% of private sector retirees have defined benefit pension plans; and they are not eligible for full Social Security benefits until they are nearly 70.
• Government workers have pension plans that allow them to retire 10-25 years earlier and with far richer payments than Social Security would provide.
• A Fort Worth, Texas police chief recently retired at age 55 with an annual pension of $189K. A successor retired at age 52 with a pension of $114K.
• In San Jose, California, 256 city retirees earn more than $100K, which represents three to five times the Social Security benefit, while retiring in their mid-50s.
• Florida spent over $1.6 billon on health care coverage for state employees.
• Florida taxpayers footed the bill for $1.44 billion of the total.
• Florida worker contributions accounted for less than 10% ($156 million) of the total.
Double-Dipping/Spiking/Pension Abuse
• More than 4,000 Arizona employees "double-dip" (collect full pensions and lump sum payments while working).
• A police commander in Delray Beach, Florida retired at age 42 with a $65K pension and now earns another salary.
• In Florida, more than 9,000 state employees and 200 elected officials are double-dipping.
• Florida spends $300 million annually on salaries and pensions for double-dippers
• A community college president got a lump sum of $893K, earns $442K annually, and has a $15K/month pension.
• A small college president got a lump sum of $585K and earns $286K annually, in addition to his $10K/month pension.
• A Northwest Florida State College president got a lump sum of $553,228 and earns $228,000 annually, in addition to his $8,803/month pension.
• A state attorney who "changed his mind about retirement" collected a lump sum of $519,995, makes an annual salary of $153,139, in addition to a $7,750/month pension.
• A Sheriff collected a lump sum of $311,173, makes an annual salary of $128,000, and receives a monthly pension of $5,699.
• In San Francisco, a recent civil grand jury report noted the prevalence of “spiking,” or boosting pension benefits via final work year promotions, a practice that has resulted, in the past decade, in over half of the police and firefighters earning pensions in excess of the wages they earned while actively working
• In Arkansas, at least 144 employees retired and then returned to the same job since 2001.
• In New York, nearly 700 retired teachers and administrators receive pensions over $100K.
Employment
• Between July 2008 and July 2009, the private sector lost 5.2 million jobs while government grew by 238,000 workers.
• Since December 2007, private sector employment has declined 5.74% while government payroll grew nearly 1%.
• From March 2009 to June 2009, the number of government employees rose from 20,904,000 to 21,446,000.
Growing Debt and Unfunded Liabilities
• The total public debt is now at $11.8 trillion
• Interest payments alone on debt came to $452 billion in 2008.
• Next year, America's debt will exceed 60% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
• The unfunded liability for Social Security is $17.5 trillion in 2009.
• The unfunded liability for Medicare is more than $92 trillion in 2009.
• The unfunded liability for state and local pension plans is more than $3.5 trillion if we use the same assumptions as private plans.
These figures are unsustainable
The public sector unions -- like the ACORN-riddled SEIU -- are destroying the budgets of cities, states and the federal government.
Now you can see why President Obama is hell-bent on nationalizing one-sixth of the economy with his thinly disguised health care "overhaul".
It helps hasten the destruction of the hated free market system and perhaps capitalism itself.
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