In New York, a state that is in desperate financial trouble with the cratering of the financial services and media industries just for starters,, my understanding is that out of a workforce of 200,000+ people, a grand total (possibly) of 325 jobs have been eliminated!

One problem with the Federal Stimulus bill is that it allows states like New York to continue in their bad ways.

In New York, the State employees have by far the best deal of anyone (except for the boys at Goldman Sachs of course).

The government sector has gotten large enough in comparison to the rest of the economy where we have reached a tipping point in the balance of power.

They no longer work for us but rather we work for them.

We are all just a bunch of milch cows that must be milked as hard as necessary to ensure that they enjoy an ever increasing quality of life and experience no discomfort from nuisances like economic downturns.

Government workers must share in the national pain of unemployment.

With unemployment hitting new levels this week, it does not make sense that government workers should be favored – especially when government growth impedes private sector growth.

Interesting to note that the federal government decided to withhold the budget for closing Guantanamo detention center though. Should any of the trained killers held there be transferred to the US, a court would have the option of releasing them to join the ranks of people in the US looking for work.

For a bit of a satirical look at what work Gitmo detainees might be qualified for, you can hit:
http://firstconservative.com/blog/obamatudes/closing-guantanamo-top-ten-occupations-for-released-terrorists

Brian

I understand your comment, but have you considered this fact:

Overall, veterans hold 25.5 percent of nonpostal federal jobs, compared with 8.3 percent of jobs in the U.S. work force. That’s a slight increase from the 25 percent of veterans employed in government five years ago.

Source: Federal Times

While I do agree with you that perhaps employment at the Federal level seems immune from the realities of any economic downturn, cutting Federal employment would tend to hit veterans employment hard. Throw in the fact that many Federal jobs are covered under the AFGE which means last hired/first fired seniority rules which would tend to effect vets from recent wars hardest.

Trash the politicians that create all the job government jobs.When you are looking for work, you take anything to feed your children. If you don’t like government program then request the program to be killed. The statics you point out are bias in nature. Compare what a government work makes to equally to industry employee. What does an engineer makes in private industry to engineer in government. I want go into the unionized labor problems, but this is a problem across industry and government. Non-unionized government works on general don’t do as well in salary industry employees.

and where it does duplicate the private sector, it probably shouldn’t be there. Consequently, comparisons of salary and benefits between public and private are meaningful ONLY if you match job for job and the match is down to the duties, not just the title.

It is legitimate to expect that government employee wages not go up at times when the general economy is stagnant or deflationary and if wages for a particular type of work go down for a significant period, government wages for that work should follow the market. Most governments have laws that set a market based pay policy however collective bargaining vehemently resists wage concessions and governments are rarely successfuly in achieving concessions. The unions just go into delay tactics and buy a new governor or legislature.

http://www.redstate.com/gamecock/2009/05/08/states-rights-nullification-secession-race-and-interstate-commerce/

is a great website. Thanks for the tip.

And of course if you work for the government, what’s the likelihood you’ll vote for cuts in government spending? I don’t have any stats on this, but my observation is that most government workers I know (with the exception of those in law enforcement) vote Democrat, which of course is a big incentive for Democrats to increase the size of government and, therefore, their own power base.