Paul Ryan’s Budget Plan Hits Federal Workers

In addition to Florida, Virginia is being billed as a critical swing state.  That being the case, one has to wonder whether or not Mitt Romney factored in Virginia's large number of federal employees, both in vote rich Northern Virginia and in the greater Hampton Roads area.  As I have noted before, the demographics of Virginia have changed to the point where if one wins the urban crescent from Northern Virginia south through Richmond and then southeast to Hampton Roads, it really doesn't matter if all of the knuckle dragging Neanderthals and Christofascists in the rest of the state vote for the other guy.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at what Paul Ryan's budget would do to federal employees, a critical piece of Virginia's voting base.  Here are excerpts:

The spending plan proposed by Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, Mitt Romney’s pick as the Republican vice presidential candidate, has drawn strong opposition from federal employees.

Under the proposed House Republican budget, which Ryan sponsored as chairman of the Budget Committee, savings from the federal workforce would total $368 billion over 10 years. The two-year freeze on basic federal pay rates, scheduled to expire at the end of this year, would be extended through 2015 for a total of five years.

“The Path to Prosperity,” as the budget plan is named, also calls on federal workers to make an unspecified “more equitable contribution to their retirement plans,” which means higher costs to employees. Additionally, the federal workforce would be cut, through attrition over three years, by 10 percent, which equals more than 200,000 positions. 

Because the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Justice and Homeland Security have so many employees, the majority of the eliminated positions would come from these agencies, all of which are related to national security.

The plan drew strong opposition from employee organizations when it was announced in March. American Federation of Government Employees President John Gage said the retirement savings means workers would “face massive cuts to the retirement benefits promised when they were hired.”

Gage also said “it is fundamentally wrong for federal employees to be required, yet again, to serve as the Automated Teller Machine for the nation. Enough is enough.”

National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen M. Kelley said the authors of the budget apparently “don’t know, don’t understand or don’t care about the key role federal employees play in helping keep our nation safe, ensuring that our food and medicines are safe and effective, that our air and water are safe, and performing so many other services that people not only expect and want, but need, as well.”

And Joseph A. Beaudoin, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, said, “Ryan’s belief that it is permissible to penalize middle-class federal workers, who protect Americans and keep our nation moving forward, is frightening.”

Ryan's falsely named "Path to Prosperity" budget plan may bring prosperity to some - i.e., the 1% - but not for most of us.  And not for federal employees.