Budget plan calls for $194 billion in unidentified cuts to federal workforce

Budget plan calls for $194 billion in unidentified cuts to federal workforce - The Washington Post

The House and Senate Republican budget plan announced this week would continue hits on government workers, as expected, with cuts that could lighten their wallets by up to $194 billion.
In March, a House budget resolution proposed increasing the employee share of pension contributions by 6 percentage points of salary, with an offsetting reduction in what agencies pay. That and ending a “special retirement supplement” would save $127 billion over 10 years. Another proposal would require federal employees to pay a greater share of premiums for their employer-sponsored health insurance.

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Fair?
Unfair?
Thoughts are.
Consider that under defined pensions people are living much longer.
Not sure how fed pension are calculated. I am familiar with the canadian Military - that pension wss/is based upon best or last 6 years of income.
So info on how a fed pen is calculated is needed.

There aren't really any cuts I would oppose. That said, while $194 billion sounds like a big cut, it is over ten years. So cutting $20 billion out of a $3 trillion budget is pretty insignificant. Every dollar spent by the state has a constituent, so you cant cut a penny without someone squealing.

Fletch said:

There aren't really any cuts I would oppose. That said, while $194 billion sounds like a big cut, it is over ten years. So cutting $20 billion out of a $3 trillion budget is pretty insignificant. Every dollar spent by the state has a constituent, so you cant cut a penny without someone squealing.

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The targets however should not be the welfare of bottom line employees. That's an upper management dodge. They do it every time.

There is really no way to adequately emphasize how terribile defined benefit pensions are for subsequent generations. Decades ago groups of public employees sat around a table with their supervisors, who were also public employees, and agreed to promise each other something that neither would ultimately have to pay for. Defined benefits result in unfunded liabilities that, under current laws, allow a liability to be pinned to generations that weren't old enough to vote (or in some cases weren't even born yet) when the pension promises were made.

Unfunded public pension liabilities should partially default. Defined benefits are unethical and should be illegal.

I agree with cuts to pensions. There is no way to regard these pension promises as sacrosanct without doing harm to groups of people that do not deserve it in the least.