GOP/romney says government workers overpaid 30-40% on average.

[HiPointDem]

The Republican Party platform has some kind words for federal employees but that praise is outweighed by long-standing GOP criticisms of the size and compensation of the federal workforce and by intentions to shift work to the private sector...

Presidential nominee Mitt Romney argues that federal employees are overcompensated by 30 percent to 40 percent on average, reflecting the conclusions of a study by the conservative Heritage Foundation...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/post/gop-targets-size-cost-of-federal-workforce/2012/08/28/2344deb4-f144-11e1-892d-bc92fee603a7_blog.html

so if you make $70K, you're really only worth $42-47K, and if you make $40, you're really only worth $24-$27K.

FYI.

[Zambero]

1. Romney is undertaxed 30-40%

maybe more

[Lasher]

3. And he is overpaid...

I don't think percentages go that high.

[Live and Learn]

18. +1 nt

[JRLeft]

2. These people make it easy to hate them.

[JFN1]

4. Makes sense. Knock down government wages to justify

knocking down private wages. Besides, we'll all like living in a third world country better, won't we?

[Live and Learn]

19. Exactly! nt

[Speck Tater]

5. I think he decided he doesn't really want to be president

and he's deliberately trying to throw the election now. It's the only thing that makes any sense at all.

[HiPointDem]

7. i've said it from the beginning: professionals don't run a campaign this lousy without it being

deliberate.

[porphyrian]

6. Fuck you, Romney.

Florida state employees are the lowest paid and hardest working in the Union. Doubt me? Look it up for yourself, courtesy of Giant Piece of Shit Scott: http://dmssalaries.heroku.com/salaries.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

8. I guess that's a joke?

[nycbiscuit]

9. so much for his claim to increase take home pay N/T

[Historic NY]

10. I guess the military falls under government worker too...

cemeteries are full of those.

[Initech]

11. CEOs are overpaid about 400x and under taxed 40%.

[bhikkhu]

12. Wherever you see "Heritage Foundation", read the Koch brothers

and it makes more sense. If you read any of their actual publications, its almost bizarre how full of logical errors, selective data and bald-faced bias it is. If they say something, you can be pretty sure its a lie dressed up haphazardly to resemble the truth. They don't even seem to care that anyone with above a high school education can see that they are liars.

[HiPointDem]

15. the kochs aren't the only funders though, or even necessarily the biggest.

it's a mistake to think the kochs are it, although they seem to be the bete noire of the moment at DU.

Exxon, for example, has given nearly a million to heritage since 1998; the rev. moon organization (that's the korea connection below) was a funder (don't know what's happened since old moon died); steve forbes, holland coors, dick scaife are on the board, all possessed of quite sizeable personal fortunes & donor networks. DeVoses also in the mix. The usual suspects, iow.

According to Media Transparency, the Heritage Foundation received $61,944,537 in foundation grants from organizations such as: the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Scaife Foundations, the John M. Olin Foundation, Inc., Castle Rock Foundation, JM Foundation, Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.

Heritage has received donations from the East Asian nations of South Korea and Taiwan; SourceWatch reports that in 1988 Korean intelligence discovered that Heritage received $2.2 million from the South Korean National Assembly during the 1980's. Although Heritage denies this claim, they do admit to receiving a $400,000 grant from the Korean conglomerate Samsung.
The Korea Foundation, a conduit of the Korean government, has also donated almost $1 million to Heritage in the past three years.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/heritage-foundation

Plus moon & scaife are connected to various intelligence operations.

everything's not about the kochs. though a lot is, lol.

[Bassettman]

13. 0. GOP/romney says government workers overpaid 30-40% on average.

Romney is a joke!

[Jack Rabbit]

14. Heritage Foundation "scholars" are overpaid by right wing billionaires

[bluestate10]

16. Romney is wrong.

I have been in the private sector from my first job as a child. What I see as a grownup is that public workers on average don't make as much as private sector workers with the same skill-set. The difference approaches 50-60%. By Romney's math, public sector workers would be working for less than minimum wage for most jobs, including teaching.

[riderinthestorm]

17. Gosh, so are community health service doctors paid more than private practice docs?

How about military docs? Paid 30 -40% more than private practice?

JAGS? Way overcompensated?

How much do SEALS earn vs the average mercenary in Afghanistan?

Perhaps I'm aiming too high? A basic Army recruit makes about $16K. A new hire cleaning toilets at Waste Mgt makes $22k.

I'd love to see how Mitt's figuring this stuff.

[Live and Learn]

20. Sorry Mittwit, the public workers meme is getting old.

Time to move on to a new group, say the poor, gays, Hispanics, blacks, Californians, teachers, liberals, etc.

What is that? You've already tried all of them?

[B Calm]

21. Republicans hate working people.

[Victor_c3]

22. I'm a federal employee

I'm one of a handful of people who works on assaying our government's gold. Last year the US government producted and sold approximately 20% of the worlds supply of gold bullion. I personally assayed half of that (or 10% of all gold bullion sold in the world last year).

Cut my pay 30-40% and see where I go. Find a qualified chemist who can pass a background check and a security clearance who'll work for a fraction of what I'm paid. 40% taken off of my pay would put me down to making $38,000 a year. That isn't even close what a chemist makes in the private sector. Hell, college graduates with no work experience make more than that.

I guess I'll have to suppliment my income by making meth if Romney is elected...

[mattclearing]

23. It's the other way around.

Corporate workers are underpaid by 30-40%. That's why they hate the Government so much. It's the last place someone can get a semi-fair living wage.

[louis c]

24. Agreed

It's not that the public sector is paid too much, it's that the private sector is paid too little.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

25. yup, beat me to it.

[justiceischeap]

26. $174,000 per year is how much our elected officials in Washington make

I'd definitely say THAT is too much.

[n2doc]

27. There goes Virginia

Lots of fed workers in northern Virginia...I don't think they will take kindly to being told they need a 40% pay cut.

[RagAss]

28. Why isn't this an ad in every swing state?

[jmowreader]

29. Okay, let's look

This is the qualification for getting hired as a VA Contract Specialist, which is the first thing I grabbed off USAjobs.com:

QUALIFICATIONS

Required education and/or experience to qualify for positions GS-05 through GS-09 are detailed in the chart below. Please note that specialized experience may be defined as reviewing requisitions to determine that proper specifications or purchase descriptions are included in solicitation documents; evaluating bids or proposals for compliance with specifications or purchase descriptions; and coordinating contracting activities with other agencies/organizations having interrelated requirements.

GS-5 (step 1 makes $27,341 per year)

Specialized Experience - None

Education - A 4-year course of study leading to a bachelor’s degree with a major in any field,

or

at least 24 semester hours in any combination of the following fields: accounting, business, finance, law, contracts, purchasing, economics, industrial management, marketing, quantitative methods, or organization and management.

GS-7 (step 1 makes $33,979 per year)

Specialized Experience - 1 year of specialized experience equivalent to at least GS-5

and/or

Education - 1 full year of graduate level education or law school or superior academic achievement

GS-9 (step 1 makes $41,563 per year)

Specialized Experience - 1 year of specialized experience equivalent to at least GS-7

and/or

Education - 2 full academic years of progressively higher level graduate education or masters or equivalent graduate degree or LL.B. or J.D.

I don't know of too many lawyers who are interested in working for $41,563 per year, and that's what they're asking for.

[HiPointDem]

30. +1.

[JHB]

31. And here's what Heritage relies on: does their data suppoer their conclusions?

They count on getting the headline out there, and no one checking up on it until later. What Mark Twain described as "a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on".


Heritage studies have a history of skewing numbers to fit their ideological message. They have cherry-picked to put a shine on conservative policies, and mixed in policies that primarily affect the middle class to inflate the numbers on programs for the poor (to make them look more expensive than they are).

Basically, anything that comes out of Heritage should be considered propaganda unless they actively prove otherwise.

[modem77]

32. I have never seen an election where the GOP consistently tries to make their tent smaller.

[Le Taz Hot]

33. The Heritage Foundation?

You mean the one funded by the Koch brothers? I have a good friend who is an LVN at a Veteran's hospital. After 35 years she is finally up to $40,000 a year. How the HELL is that "overpaid?"