Federal Government Needs Massive Hiring Binge, Study Finds - washingtonpost.com »
Posted By Tumultuous 2 months, 3 weeks ago in Political NewsThe federal government needs to hire more than 270,000 workers for "mission-critical" jobs over the next three years, a surge prompted in part by the large number of baby-boomer federal workers reaching retirement age, according to the results of a government-wide survey being released Thursday.
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Tumultuous
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calitennflo2 months, 3 weeks ago
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$270,000 more workers??? Before you know it...all will realize we all work for a government...until we drop dead...LOL and I thought they represented us.
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Sad...someone has to support those workers with tax. Before you know it...there will be an order out to kill off the baby boomers...as they are too expensive! -
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sinophil492 months, 3 weeks ago
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gw - You missed the section where the article stated that many of the federal jobs in the past administration were done by outside contractors. These guys are far more expensive than a government employee or military serviceman who could do the same job.
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Some of the reasons that Bush hired and used so many contractors is that the real cost could be more easily hidden from congress and not be as vulnerable to questioning. Secondly, outside contractors are less restrained by government regulations on how to do a job. Thirdly, outside contractors, including foreign mercenaries, skim a lot more money off the top for their own pockets.
So getting rid of all the contractors and hiring "in-house" personnel to do the same job is cheaper for the government (ie., taxpayer). And it will be subject to closer scrutiny and cost control.
I am not saying that we will end up with a net decrease in expenditures. I am only saying that we can control government employees and servicemen and the resultant cost a lot more tightly.
Another point in the article ignored by cons is that much of the employment increase is in the medical field because of the 2 wars that Bush started. True, Obama seems unable to end the 2 wars as quickly as we want. Nonetheless, this task was passed on to him from before. Anyway, our soldiers need and deserve the medical care that has been neglected for so long. Obama must deliver the health care. To neglect our veterans further is not acceptable.
Thirdly, many of the hires coming up are simply to replace normal attrition and retirements
Fourth, the total number of federal employees in 1970 came to over 1% of the total population of the USA. In 2008, the number of federal employees came to 0.66% of the population. Even if all 600,000 increased positions are filled (highly doubtful), that would bring the percentage up to about 0.88%.
Fifth, in the face of the severe recession and high unemployment, hiring by the government is another form of stimulus spending - with a difference. Instead of going to auto companies, banks, other financial giants, and private contractors, where some money inevitably will disappear into bonuses, management costs, overruns, share dividends, etc., hiring by the government directly puts people to work with no need to create profits and dividends.
So, overall, increased hiring by the government is a lot more cost efficient in stimulating the economy than doling out the money to Lord-knows-what companies.
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Albmore2 months, 3 weeks ago
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sino49- Although I take some of your points into consideration. Who will be paying for these jobs? If they are perminate jobs than that will increase the federal budjet perminatly. Is this what we really want, even a larger government and more people dependent on the government for thier survival.
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I thought the stimulus was to boost the private sector, not to enlarge an already large government force.
I am sorry but this does bare some of the aspects of the former Soviet Union.
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