Taypayer Handouts and Ripoffs

A Hidden World, Growing Beyond Control

July 19, 2010

Washington Post - The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it, or exactly how many agencies do the same work… In all, at least 263 organizations have been created or reorganized as a response to 9/11… Among the most important people inside the [federal government’s] SCIFs (sensitive compartmented information facilities) are the low-paid employees carrying their lunches to work to save money. They are the analysts, the 20- and 30-year-olds making $41,000 to $65,000 a year, whose job is at the core of everything Top Secret America tries to do.

Editor's Note: In 2008, the average wage for 1.9 million federal civilian workers was $79,197, which compared to an average $49,935 for the nation’s 108 million private sector workers (see story below).

The Lies About Green Jobs

January 10, 2010

Climate Change Fraud - In 2010, the Obama administration says it intends to relieve the job shortage by creating "green jobs" in the sectors of wind and solar power and biofuels. It has announced a program that will cost $2.3 billion, costing approximately $135,000 per job.

"Show me one other industry that requests and receives a nearly 30 percent taxpayer subsidy," says Thomas J. Pyle, president of the market-based Institute for Energy Research. "If the President really wants to create an environment that will foster economic growth and job creation, he need not look any further than the domestic oil, gas and coal industries."

... A large part of the administration’s $786 billion dollar stimulus bill was devoted to green or renewable energy projects, but the rate of unemployment continues to rise, the cost of gasoline and heating oil continues to rise in the face of the coldest winter on record in decades, and real jobs in energy industries are thwarted by Obama administration restrictions on the exploration and development of our national energy reserves ...

America, the home to centuries-worth of massive amounts of coal, has a President who has openly declared war on the coal industry that currently provides half of all the electricity used by Americans. By contrast, solar and wind provide just over one percent! When the President talks of "green jobs" he is lying to Americans who need real jobs. The stimulus bill was nothing more than a political "pork" bill and is providing no real surge in job creation.

Will Obama's Green Jobs Plan Work?

January 18, 2010

Xinhua - Though the plan to create 17,000 jobs in the green energy sector alone is promising, the plausibility of such a plan is puzzling. At least to some. At odds is whether Barack Obama's green jobs plan will work, if at all, against the backdrop of the country's worst recession since the 1930s.

Skeptics challenged that the Obama administration is investing in green technologies unlikely to be profitable and, therefore, the investment would amount to unsustainable taxpayer-funded jobs at most.

Obama late last week announced his plan to boost employment by providing 2.3 billion U.S. dollars in tax credits for the creation of green jobs. The president is also urging the Congress to approve investment of another $5 billion in over 180 green energy projects.

The announcement caused a kerfuffle over figures, as arithmetic-minded critics divided the special fund into a $100,000+ annual salary for each of these 17,000 would-be job holders, way above the median annual household income in the country.

Federal Pay Continues Rapid Ascent

August 24, 2009

Sweetness & Light - The George W. Bush years were very lucrative for federal workers. In 2000, the average compensation (wages and benefits) of federal workers was 66 percent higher than the average compensation in the U.S. private sector. The new data show that average federal compensation is now more than double the average in the private sector.

In 2008, the average wage for 1.9 million federal civilian workers was $79,197, which compared to an average $49,935 for the nation’s 108 million private sector workers (measured in full-time equivalents); the federal pay advantage is steadily increasing. The federal advantage is even more pronounced when worker benefits are included.

In 2008, federal worker compensation averaged a remarkable $119,982, which was more than double the private sector average of $59,909.

What is going on here? Members of Congress who have large numbers of federal workers in their districts relentlessly push for expanding federal worker compensation. Also, the Bush administration had little interest in fiscal restraint, and it usually got rolled by the federal unions. The result has been an increasingly overpaid elite of government workers, who are insulated from the economic reality of recessions and from the tough competitive climate of the private sector.

It’s time to put a stop to this. Federal wages should be frozen for a period of years, at least until the private-sector economy has recovered and average workers start seeing some wage gains of their own. At the same time, gold-plated federal benefit packages should be scaled back as unaffordable given today’s massive budget deficits. There are many qualitative benefits of government work—such as extremely high job security—so taxpayers should not have to pay for such lavish government pay packages.

No wonder the unions want national healthcare. Every worker should want to be a federal employee.

And if Mr. Obama and the Democrats have their way, they soon will be.

Federal Workers Owe More Than $3 Billion in Income Taxes