You don't read very well, do you Dave? (Hint: It's NOT NPR that receives the tax money, it's your local Public Radio station.)

- Jack

 

All these wasteful "petty cash" programs and subsidies that the government has no business funding all add up. Getting rid of these expenditures that the government doesn't have any business funding would go a long way to getting us out of the $14 Trillion debt we have racked up or at least send a signal that we are trying to get a serious handle on it.

You don't have to tell us Jack, you make it pretty obvious.

 

Once again, Jack insults someone. Hopefully, he'll edit his post.


Jack, NPR gets public (taxpayer money). Whether it's laundered through a "local public radio station" makes no difference.

 

Some people's hubris is unlimited. Unfortunately, facts don't support the error.

 

True NPR the content provider no longer gets any federal money directly.
Prior to MAR-2011, the content provider NPR got 2% of it's $ 180 M in revenue ( $ 3.6 M ) from the departments of Education and Commerce direct to the content provider NPR.

Now ~ 40% of the $ 180 M in NPR revenue ( $ 72 M ) to the content provider NPR is from the local stations ( i.e. the station that you tune in to listen to the NPR content ).

The local stations that carry NPR content, got 5% of their funding from federal, state and local government funding, 15-20% of the funding from the CPB ( govt ) and ~ 10% of the funding from universities ( could not find a break down of public vs private on this section of funding ).
So at least 20 to 25% of the public radio funding is from tax dollars, extrapolate that at least 20% of the 40% of $ 180M ( ~ $ 14M ) is supplied from tax dollars still today for NPR content.

 

Meh, whats $14M..chump change. We can just print more money to pay for it

 

That came from China. Don't worry the rate is not that high...yet.

 

The direct and indirect funding of NPR and its stations are only a small part of the true cost to the taxpayers.

Don't forget, donations to NPR and its stations are tax deductible.

How much does that cost the government in lost tax revenue?

Seems like the libs are all for eliminating tax loopholes used by corporations and the rich. This is one I'd love to see closed before my taxes get raised as part of some sort of 'shared sacrifice'.

 

If the average federal effective tax rate ( for those that can make tax deductible donations ) is 19% ( took a swag from the effective tax rates on just below the low side of upper middle class and up ) NPR the content provider alone is costing tax payers ~ $34M per year.
CPB station funding
individual donors (27.6 percent) = $729 M @ 19% ETR = $ 138.5 M
local businesses (16.4 percent) = $435 M @ 20% ( SWAG ) ETR = $ 87 M

SWAG for FY2010, public broadcasting constituted $ 259.5 M in lost tax revenues if I did my math correctly. This is just the deduction side of things.

These are only called loopholes if it is for a corporation or those in the top 10% tax revenue generators ( "rich" ).
Once you drop below that, it is called a tax deduction, and doing the right thing.

 

I find it rather interesting that the critters in Congress have their must not cut list. Essentially it is military and all entitlements. That leaves cutting around the edges. I don't think any of them understand that if they cut funding for programs like NPR/PBS then they will not have to cut as much from the big three spending programs. The other problem is the Republican critters seem to believe the budget can be balanced by drastically cutting pay and benefits to the workers. My wife went to work from private sector to the government. She took a bit of a pay cut, but she went form management to entry level. If you compare the entry level position from her old company (that paid drastically below market wages) and the government position she currently fills, it is amazing. The health benefits are about the same. She get more vacation now. The retirement is a little better now. The starting pay at her old employer was around 35k without bonus. With bonus it was around 45k, but her best employees were making around 50k with O/T and bonuses. There was no max pay at her old job. The starting pay at her new job is 31k with no O/T or bonus. It maxes out at 50k with no O/T or bonuses after 20 years. No O/T or bonuses are available at her new job. As an old Sgt of mine used to say, they can make me work long, but they can't make me work hard. One thing the Republican critters seem to fail to understand is since many programs are run by the government the government employees have to be subject matter experts. They have to know the programs in and out, because they run programs that nobody else has. There is no place else to go to get the services they provide. Cutting pay/benefits too much will result in a work force that will not be as productive or willing to go the extra mile (in the short term). In the long term it will result in a higher turn over rate, with the resulting increases in training costs and hiring costs. Many people avoid government employment only because from application to hire date can be several months or years, while the private sector can take as short at a few days.

 

Do you mean like the Social Security or Medicare departments ?
Those 2 do not offer any information on the subject, they hand the person a pamphlet and tell them to read it.
They are not allowed to be subject matter experts or provide any opinion or information other than 'read the pamphlet'.
How hard is it to fill in the blanks on a screen ?
Data Entry used to pay slightly higher than min wage in the private sector.


Which govt department does this extra mile work now ?
They already have your old Sgt's motto implemented.

1. How many govt employees are going to even think about leaving, let alone in the mass that you are talking to have an impact on the "efficiencies" that these trained govt employees have ?
1.1. Keep in mind most state / local govt employees have pensions, that pay until the day they die, not when the employee's 401(k) runs dry. Bottomless pit of money to the govt worker.
2. Are there enough jobs on the street to get enough govt workers out to make an impact ? Let alone pay what a lifer govt worker makes in benefits and holiday / vacation. Add in those back in the day that opted out of SS, that is another 6.2% ( 4.2% this year ) that is going to come out of their check.
3. If the company your wife just left has comparable benefits to govt workers, only pays 4K less per year ( which think about the additional holiday / vacation over time ), it might not be "drastically below market wage" as you think. Take a look at the remainder of the private sector, and that job might look pretty good compared to them, or the Gulf area is going really well job wise, compared to the remainder of the country.

 

I mean agencies like: USDA, HUD, CBP, USCG, USAF, USA, USMC, USN, FDIC, NCUA, FHA, US TREASURY, DOJ, NASA, NOAA, the list goes on and on.



Look above. Many do have wasteful spending, but many of the employees in those agencies go the extra mile to get the job done. Granted there are sections in each of those departments that are not efficient at all, but over all they do what they do very well.



Many are just waiting for the economy to improve before they hit the bricks. There is a lot of BS to put up with in government work when compared to private industry, at least more than either my wife or I have seen. Many of the long time federal employees will hang on for the retirement but the junior and early mid career people will be hitting the bricks to get the best pay, benefits and work conditions.

If the compensation package is cut enough the long time, experienced employees will retire. When the economy improves people will start leaving. Back in the early 2000's many local LE agencies decided it would be a good thing to require their new officers to possess a 4 year degree. The only problem was that is what private industry wanted also. The result was most college graduates discovered they could make 2 or 3 times the salary offered by police agencies if they went to the private sector. Many agencies dropped their degree requirement when they discovered they weren't getting enough applications to meet attrition. The only difference between that and cutting compensation is congress is working on the other side of the equation. A few months ago my wife was offered a position with a large well respected consulting firm performing audits for private companies. The pay was 120k per year, but the job was 10 hours away. She is applying for the same position at a federal agency with a starting salary of 58k and topping out at 84k in 20 years that is 2 hours away.

You missed the part about bonuses and O/T. Her old company paid bonuses and O/T resulting in the pay difference between the government job and her old job being about 14k.

She was fighting for pay raises for her people, but was told there was no money for raises. When her company started buying smaller companies she noticed her people were being paid substantially less than the newly acquired companies. Again she was told there was no money for raises. This didn't sit well with her or her subordinates. How can the company buy other companies then say they don't have any money? This also left the pay scale all over the place. The new people were being paid more than the managers of the parent company to perform the same job as the "line workers" who had been with the parent company. My wife managed large groups of people who made substantially more than she did in base salary. She had enough, walked from the company, and took a 20k per year pay cut. It wasn't until my wife left and the company bought a larger competitor was it acknowledged that the parent company needed to increase their pay scale. She also noticed the pay discrepancy when she was trying to hire people during the crash. People were being laid off, but her company would still hire every once in a while. She was noticing the pay being offered was typically 8-10k less than the previous jobs these people held. Not to mention she still has contacts at several other companies from previous jobs. In her industry, the difference between the going pay and government pay for doing the same job is approximately 20-24k per year (with the government paying less than private industry). Taking into consideration the higher amount of vacation afforded government workers, that accounts for no more than 2k. If the remaining 18-22k per year were invested, that would be one hell of a retirement. My job doesn't have a private sector equivalent, however we are subject matter experts and we advise industry, and the public on laws, policies, and regulations.

 

US Treasury ? Really, they are subject matter experts ?
You have to be kidding me. Want to compare the US Treasury subject matter expert listing ? The guy from the NYC is heading up the whole mess now, cannot do his own taxes, and was the chief person wanting to bail out AIG, and let Leaman Bros go down the tubes.
Quite a few of these you are listing, even in good job conditions, none of these have private sector equivalencies.
USAF, where are they going, UAL, AA, Delta.
Those pilots are getting the shaft worse than USAF. Feeder routes eat into the prime UAL pilot jobs, and those are 30K / yr non union jobs. Those are pilots hoping to get a main route job in 10 years.
Ask a UAL pilot that went through the employee ownership, only to have the place go bust again, retirement package gone ( that is where the employee ownership was held all 55% of the non voting shares ).

Got any examples ?
HUD - FHA were asleep at the wheel when the housing mess started. They were the department driving the $ 1B in funding to get Clinton to have his chicken in every pot, and a house to keep in all in. Thank those clowns for starting the 125% mortgages, by pumping reduced costs to mortgage companies that wrote those types of loans ( hint Clinton made the announcement in Oakland, CA ).

It is going to be a long wait. There will not be wage pressure to pump up the private sector wages for quite a while. Considering the housing prices are not expected to reach 2003 levels until the end of 2013 at best case, it will be a long time before there is wage pressure in the private sector.
Gov employees ( at least state / local ) are still getting their rasies like clock work. The private sector, if you have gotten a raise since 2009, you are doing real well. A lot have not seen any raise what so ever in 4 years, and more than 40% of them have had a pay cut in 2010 at least, bringing them back to 2006 levels.

BTW : Where are all the LEOs going in the private sector ? The only growth section is overseas security. A US based security job is a hard one to come by, other than mall cop.

For ~ 50K / yr she would not commute ? Wow, might not want to pass that sob story around too much, you might get a mob action.

OT & Bonuses are not always going to be there, cannot really count them . If they are, again you are in an area that is going far and away better than the 9.5% UE ( and 10% under Employed ) that the remainder of the country is seeing.

Welcome to the world that 85% of the country is living in. Again you might need a reality check, as it seems you are living in a bubble, safe from the outside world.

Wonder why the acquired company was being sold ?
If it was long term solid, the previous owners would not have sold it.
Bet it was going to be not too long before that caught up with them.
What the govt allows for investments vs pay is different on the balance sheet. Easier to borrow money to buy a company, than borrow money to make payroll. If her old company went to the bank to borrow money to hand out as payroll, they would have laughed them out of the office.

acknowledge and actually do something are 2 different things. Also I do not think they published a report via AP news, that said this, I would guess more along the lines of the scuttle butt said this ( grape vine, phone game, etc ).

Can't be for the same position, else they would get in a sling with the govt. They cannot perform a RIF, then hire back the same job for 30% less.
Were they laid off or fired ? something does not pass the sniff test with this statement, considering the company some how said they have to pay better, but can do a RIF ???

BTW : Yes most govt jobs do have 1 heck of a retirement package, when compared to private sector ( some Fed govt were broght more in line with private sector, but SLED is way out of bounds ). Add in the other benefits, and yes it can easily be 30% or more above private sector jobs. Do you have not only $1:$1 cost increases passed on to your health care costs, but also a higher percentage of employee paid amount ? private sector is out of control on this, and it will get worse once public health care starts to come to action ( and is not funded by the likes of ATT, GE, and the unions, due to waivers being issued ).
The wife got a very small taste of what private sector is like these days, and it is going to get worse through Q1CY2012.
Unemployment is targeted to be 10% by end of Q1CY2012 and that is if things can somehow continue as well as they are today, so add another 1% to what is unemployed today, and that is what it will be like.

 

Uh read the original post. I know many of those agencies do not have private sector counterparts. That is what I said. Without the government in those situations it would not exist. As far as the entire Treasury I agree the boss is an idiot. However without the treasury department the government ceases to run. They control the money and collection of taxes.


HUD and FHA help keep the mortgage wheel moving. I agree some of the policies they had to work with because of Clinton were stupid and resulted in the mess we are in now. If the policies they had to work with we logical and made sense the agencies would have worked fine.


We don't need wage pressure. All that is needed is companies to start hiring again. As was pointed out government pay is not all they are making it out to be.

You are correct, if all a LEO is is a street cop without much other training they are stuck working as mall security. Few officer's i know have just the basic training. Most have enough training to land well paying jobs if they want them when they retire.

If the job was just Monday through Friday she would have jumped at it. Unfortunately the job involves a lot of travel and living 10 hours form work is not feasible, especially if you want a family life.

The numbers I gave you were typical yearly salaries over several years(even after the melt down). That is average for what they made and took into consideration teh up years and down years over the period.

There are many reasons companies merge. To better the position in the market. To bring themsleves into a new market. To obtain an existing business instead of having to build it from the ground up. As to how the wife's company buy the others. No loans were taken. It was all cash and stocks. Literally, assets on hand.

Actually it came up in conversation with HR a while back when the wife was being interviewed for some other issues(not going to get into it as it is private info). One of the reasons the wife left was due to low pay. HR floated the prospect of the wife coming back and mentioned the fact that they understand they were not paying any of the employees in the wife's section a market wage.

Her company wasn't laying off they were hiring people who had been laid off from other companies.

Since I am talking about FEDERAL employees, I don't give a rats hind end about state or local employees. Their systems are too varied to talk about in general terms and not to mention the congress critters don't have a direct say in what the state and local government employees get. I don't receive $1:1 increases for my health care, sorry. Actually I have had to pay more every year while not being covered as well. So I pay more and get less coverage, kind of like the private sector. With the exception of her current job, the only time my wife has worked for the government was when she was in the military during Desert Storm.

 

That does not make them subject matter experts. That makes them a cog in the wheel. Not the same thing. just another bloated agency that is flailing around these days.
Not very well. Just before labor day, the Realtor association released the numbers on houses. The mortgages were applied for, people had enough guts ( and down payments ) to start to get back in, the mortgage could not be written.nobody would touch it. Want to explain how 20% down qualified people are not getting mortgages, and HUD and FHA help keep the mortgage wheel moving ?
This shows they are frozen in their tracks, and not specifically a subject matter expert, that the country will fall apart without ( it is with them ).

Hiring does not mean wages go up, that only means the unemployed rate drops.
Low unemployment causes wage pressure ( too many jobs, not enough bodies to fill the spots).
Again, not going to happen for several years ( if at all ).
Wage pressure that caused the last increase ( that made private pay better in total than govt ), was due to unemployment being at ~ 4.5% in the late 90s.
Country would need to have unemployment cut by 50% and the under employed be back to full employment before wages will make any considerable move.

And you are forgetting the build up to the crash. Most will not sell a strong company today, if it is going to be that much stronger later. That would be leaving money on the table.
Cash & STOCK. OK, not the bank, but you cannot give raises with stock. That is a qualified or non qualified ISOP, and not a dollar in their pocket today, it is maybe something in their pocket after the 12 month cliff, and then quarterly or monthly after that.


That is a retention action. Not the same as saying they will raise everyone wages. Two different things, don't read too much into it, as the HR staff is charged with doing a job, and offering a raise to stay for some employees is what they do. What they say in that negotiation is not a stated company direction, just what needs to be said to close the deal. It is just business.

OK, they were adding to the staff, and had the upper hand in the transaction. They have one position that eight people want. Are they going to offer top wage to get it filled ? You wanted a truck, did you offer to pay list or 2K above list ?

So you are just now getting a taste of what the private sector has been feeling since JAN-2009.
Welcome to the party. If you had a pay CUT in 2010, and got a 18% increase in medical premiums, you are inline with private sector.
Of course this is without getting a raise since 2006....