Time To Bring Government Employee Compensation & Benefits In Line With The Private Sector

Rather than raising taxes, as just occurred in Nevada, it is time to bring Government Employee Compensation and Benefits in line with what is common in the private sector for like work.  As it is now, public employees typically earn 40% more than what is common in total Compensation and Benefits than are paid in the private sector, mostly because of benefits and pensions.  And, the question is WHY?   Why should Government Employees, on our dime, be paid any better than I as a mid size business owner pay my employees.  Why should the 50% of us that pay all the income taxes in our country and most of the other taxes, fees etc., as well, give up our hard earned money to pay Government Employees more than we ourselves earn.   Hello, there is something very wrong with this picture, particularly since it is bankrupting our country. 

Local, State and the Federal Governments owe trillions of dollars in unfunded liability to cover hefty Government Employee pensions and retirement benefits that are just not available to private sector employees anymore.  So again, why should we, the taxpayers of this country, continue doing this especially since these Government Employee Benefits are unsustainable.  Most companies in the United States provide medical and dental benefits with a hefty employee co-pay.  In our company's case, we pay 70% of premiums for the employee and 50% for families.  That means that the employee pays 30% of the premium for him or herself and 50% for their families.  In addition, today there are fairly high deductibles and other co-pays.  ObamaCare has absolutely NOT brought down the cost of health care insurance in anyway; matter fact in many states it is gone up.   Government Union Employees complain if they have to pay 29 cents as their co-pay.  That is just too bad.  It is time that these benefits be indexed to what is common in the private sector.  Any Government Employee that does not like it is free to find a job in the private sector.

Further, many Government Employees get outrageous pensions, which could be equal to their full pay at retirement and often continuing medical benefits for life.  The rest of us saps usually get Social Security that maxes out around $2,600 a month at full retirement age; now 66.   And, most companies provide a 401K Contributory Plan to provide for additional pension benefits.  In our company case, we match 50 cents on the dollar up to 6% of salary.  And, many of us are paying more and more for Medicare.  Again, why should any Government Employee get any better a pension plan and other benefits for life than I provide my employees; particularly since there is so much failure in government and it is almost impossible to fire an incompetent employee.     

The United States National Debt is $18 Trillion with no end in sight.  Local and State governments also have trillions of dollars of debt.  These amounts do not include the unfunded liability sitting out there, waiting to explode on the American Taxpayer, for Government Pensions totally Trillions of dollars more.  Yet Socialists and RINOS in office keep adding new government programs and entitlements that are unsustainable like ObamaCare, expanded Medicaid, more and more money for public education and other public services.   We just saw this happen in Nevada, where this Blogger lives, as our RINO/Socialist Governor Brian Sandoval (BS for short) and RINO controlled State Legislature just increased spending and taxes by $1.5 Billion, about a 20% year over year increase and the highest in Nevada history.   These RINOS and Socialists are fiscally reckless and insane. 

In any case, now is the time to bring Government Employee Compensation and Benefits in line with the private sector for like work.  If nothing else, this should be happening for all new employees to stop the Government Pension Madness that we have now.  Any Government Employee that does not like it is welcome to find employment in the private sector where they will be fired if they are incompetent.  It is time for common sense to prevail.  If only we had elected officials that have any common sense, perhaps fiscal sanity would prevail.  But based on what we just experienced in Nevada at the hands of Governor BS and his RINO cronies in the legislature, I would not count on it.   

P.S.  The word on the street is that Governor BS promised his RINO cronies in the State Legislature, that voted for his huge Margins Tax and other Tax increases, cushy state govenment jobs if they are thrown out of office because they voted to support these unprecedented tax and spending increases, naturally with hefty pensions.  Corruption in government never ends.  Go figure.