Hints at the budget plan?

[ajareds92]

What are your thoughts on the potential adjustments to government retirement?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pow ... b9d83847fc

[PoorFed]

Before I start, I would like to point out that I am a current federal employee with 7 years of service so I still have s long ways to go before retirement.
While the proposed plan, if implemented would negatively impact my paycheck for years to come, I understand the need for it. I am not saying that it is the best approach to balancing out budget it it IS an approach. Some people fail to realize that we do not live in a world of infinite/limitless resources. In our society and the way our taxes are set up, there will always be segments of the population that will gain more than others. The primary function of taxes is the transfer of wealth. Now to vent....
My opinion is that instead of retirement reduction, reduce the roadblock to firing employees for poor performance. My office has about 40 employees...I would say more than half do not earn their pay and there are about a quarter that adds no real value and actually causes more work on the rest of us. Getting rid of these quarter, GS-12 employee would not result in a significant increase in workload for the remainder but would result in about $1.5 million in "savings" per year. Times thing by the thousands of offices/departments/agencies and you would bridge a significant gap in the budget. Not gonna lie, when they did mass furloughs several years ago, all I was thinking was it's these donkeys....get rid of them and the rest of us wouldn't need to take a pay cut. I know most of you on this site know what I am talking about and I hope you are not ones in the later group. The federal government as a whole is very inefficient and wasteful. In many cases, a federal job held by certain people is another form of social welfare

[StormVet]

What are your thoughts on the potential adjustments to government retirement?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pow ... b9d83847fc

Will be an uphill battle.

[WildBill]

What are your thoughts on the potential adjustments to government retirement?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pow ... b9d83847fc

Will be an uphill battle.

Agree.

[skiehawk11]

I think moving to high average 5 is smart. I disagree with everything else. The only way I would ever leave a pension is if a 401k program had matching up to 15 percent and/or the company had a generous profit-sharing plan in combination with a 401k plan.

[wdd09]

.....The primary function of taxes is the transfer of wealth. Now to vent....

No, especially with you being a Fed you should know what taxes are for.

Taxes are a means towards pooling together resources (money) so that the government can provide a service that serves the greater good of the country. I.e. military, infrastructure.

[evilanne]

The primary function of taxes is the transfer of wealth. Now to vent....
My opinion is that instead of retirement reduction, reduce the roadblock to firing employees for poor performance. My office has about 40 employees...I would say more than half do not earn their pay and there are about a quarter that adds no real value and actually causes more work on the rest of us. Getting rid of these quarter, GS-12 employee would not result in a significant increase in workload for the remainder but would result in about $1.5 million in "savings" per year. Times thing by the thousands of offices/departments/agencies and you would bridge a significant gap in the budget. Not gonna lie, when they did mass furloughs several years ago, all I was thinking was it's these donkeys....get rid of them and the rest of us wouldn't need to take a pay cut. I know most of you on this site know what I am talking about and I hope you are not ones in the later group. The federal government as a whole is very inefficient and wasteful. In many cases, a federal job held by certain people is another form of social welfare

I don't subscribe to WaPo, here is another article http://www.fedweek.com/fedweek/trump-bu ... -benefits/

I remember first starting out having similar opinions that you stated--there is definitely a lot of waste and I'm sure that many jobs could be eliminated through automation or centralization, some which has happened over the years in some organizations. On the other hand the bureaucracy has a way of sustaining itself and getting larger rather than smaller over time. There are too many redundant organizations and extra layers of overhead that are not necessary IMHO but so much is political or a knee jerk reaction to specific situation.
Furloughs showed me gov't employees are not valued, plus I could get used to more time off & early retirement

I doubt they will be able to change the retirement contributions for existing employees. They were only able to increase the rates in 2013 & 2014 for new hires. Since they are going after future COLA's for all federal employees...there will be too much resistance although younger employees may not complain too much and FERS doesn't get any COLA until age 62 now and it is already lower than CSRS COLA. Getting rid of the supplement will cause employees work longer which will be counter productive to downsizing government, plus I'm not sure that they would able to take it away from existing employees as all the changes have always been applicable only to new employees.

Finally, I'm not sure how they figure that CSRS already pay more into their system...what they pay is about equivalent to FERS Retirement Contribution + social security and their pension is much better than FERS Pension + Social Security including better COLAs...it doesn't seem fair to treat them better than FERS employees other than retirees consisting of more CSRS employees are more vocal.

The long-term costs of paying the FERS retirement benefit are about half as much as future CSRS retirement benefits due to the less generous computation of the retirement benefit. That means the long-range costs of FERS are lower. http://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/ret ... fit/91502/

The federal government makes supplemental payments into the CSRDF on behalf of employees covered by the CSRS because employee and agency contributions and interest earnings do not meet the full cost of the benefits earned by employees covered by that system. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL30023.pdf

If they followed through on the change to high 5 years of earnings, I think it may increase retirement rate of currently eligible retirees. It seems to be the least controversial since it would only have minor impact and it's been brought up several times already.

[ajareds92]

I think moving to high average 5 is smart. I disagree with everything else. The only way I would ever leave a pension is if a 401k program had matching up to 15 percent and/or the company had a generous profit-sharing plan in combination with a 401k plan.

I agree with your assement. How did you reach 15% as the point at which you would be okay with not having a pension?

[USA]

Furloughs showed me gov't employees are not valued, plus I could get used to more time off & early retirement

Exactly.

[John316]

For those of us who have been in Federal Service long enough to remember when they were switching over from CSRS to FERS we had folks promise us going over to FERS that we would be taken care of in the form of a three tiered retirement plan. One of those "legs" of the stool was the Social Security supplement, to take us from 56 (MRA) to 62 when we could apply for regular SS. Now they want to take that away from us who are so close. Makes me think that our Roth's would be in trouble 20 to 30 years from now when people will have tons of money in those plans that the government can't get their greedy fingers on. Folks, be careful what the government promises.

[skiehawk11]

I think moving to high average 5 is smart. I disagree with everything else. The only way I would ever leave a pension is if a 401k program had matching up to 15 percent and/or the company had a generous profit-sharing plan in combination with a 401k plan.

I agree with your assessment. How did you reach 15% as the point at which you would be okay with not having a pension?

Matching 15 percent means theoretically saving 30 percent of income for retirement. Using index returns and Monte-Carlo simulations, I've found that saving the equivalent of 30 percent income to be ideal for a solid retirement.

[PoorFed]

.....The primary function of taxes is the transfer of wealth. Now to vent....

No, especially with you being a Fed you should know what taxes are for.

Taxes are a means towards pooling together resources (money) so that the government can provide a service that serves the greater good of the country. I.e. military, infrastructure.

Not to start a debate or anything but yes, taxes should be meant to pull resources together for the common good of society such as military defense and infrastructure due to the free rider problem. However, the reality is the bulk of tax revenue is spent on transferring wealth from one group to another. Social security, Medicare, welfare benefits (housing, food stamps). Even home interest deduction transfers wealth from renters to home owners. I am willing to give up my FERS in place of a higher TSP contribution from the agency as the other poster has mentioned. In fact, rather than social security, I would much rather have all those contributions go into my TSP like CSRS even without the "employer" match

[wdd09]

.....The primary function of taxes is the transfer of wealth. Now to vent....

No, especially with you being a Fed you should know what taxes are for.

Taxes are a means towards pooling together resources (money) so that the government can provide a service that serves the greater good of the country. I.e. military, infrastructure.

Not to start a debate or anything but yes, taxes should be meant to pull resources together for the common good of society such as military defense and infrastructure due to the free rider problem. However, the reality is the bulk of tax revenue is spent on transferring wealth from one group to another. Social security, Medicare, welfare benefits (housing, food stamps). Even home interest deduction transfers wealth from renters to home owners. I am willing to give up my FERS in place of a higher TSP contribution from the agency as the other poster has mentioned. In fact, rather than social security, I would much rather have all those contributions go into my TSP like CSRS even without the "employer" match

I'd rather not lose any benefits, but if I were to lose some i wish I would get more coming into tsp to offset fers and such, like you mentioned. I know i can a much better return on my investment (I think).

[bamablue]

I hadn't thought of it like this before, but I'm beginning to wonder if federal employment is part of the swamp that's being drained. I never though of myself that way, but I'm coming around to it...

[Peaty]

It looks like we are.