17,000 Federal Employees Earned More Than $200K Last Year
See which agencies employ the federal workforce’s highest earners.
BY ERIC KATZ, GOVERNMENT EXECUTIVE
February 24, 2015 More than 16,900 federal employees took home in excess of $200,000 in base salary in 2014, according to a partial database of federal salary data.
The information, compiled by FedSmith.com using data from the Office of Personnel Management and other agencies, shows the annual compensation for every civilian federal worker, save those at the Defense Department. The number of workers earning more than $200,000 represented about 1.6 percent of employees on the list and is up from about 15,000 who cleared that salary in 2013. It also makes up a slightly higher percentage of the employees on this list.
Most of the high earners worked as medical officers at the Veterans Affairs Department. Other agencies that require a highly specialized workforce paid several employees at least $200,000; these included the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
More than 1,600 federal employees cleared $300,000 in base salary last year. Just two—VA doctors in Palo Alto, Calif., and Pittsburgh—took in more than $400,000.
All of these employees are paid on systems specific to their agency or occupation. Some of these systems have much higher pay caps than the General Schedule, which sets the salaries for the vast majority of federal employees and capped annual pay—before adjusting for locality—at just less than $130,000 last year.
Secrecy around police surveillance equipment proves a case’s undoing
By Ellen Nakashima February 22 at 3:10 PM
TALLAHASSEE — The case against Tadrae McKenzie looked like an easy win for prosecutors. He and two buddies robbed a small-time pot dealer of $130 worth of weed using BB guns. Under Florida law, that was robbery with a deadly weapon, with a sentence of at least four years in prison.
But before trial, his defense team detected investigators’ use of a secret surveillance tool, one that raises significant privacy concerns. In an unprecedented move, a state judge ordered the police to show the device —a cell-tower simulator sometimes called a StingRay — to the attorneys.
Rather than show the equipment, the state offered McKenzie a plea bargain.
Today, 20-year-old McKenzie is serving six months’ probation after pleading guilty to a second-degree misdemeanor. He got, as one civil liberties advocate said, the deal of the century. (The other two defendants also pleaded guilty and were sentenced to two years’ probation.)
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality
BY TOM WHEELER
02.04.15 | 11:00 AM |
After more than a decade of debate and a record-setting proceeding that attracted nearly 4 million public comments, the time to settle the Net Neutrality question has arrived. This week, I will circulate to the members of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed new rules to preserve the internet as an open platform for innovation and free expression. This proposal is rooted in long-standing regulatory principles, marketplace experience, and public input received over the last several months.
Broadband network operators have an understandable motivation to manage their network to maximize their business interests. But their actions may not always be optimal for network users. The Congress gave the FCC broad authority to update its rules to reflect changes in technology and marketplace behavior in a way that protects consumers. Over the years, the Commission has used this authority to the public’s great benefit.
The internet wouldn’t have emerged as it did, for instance, if the FCC hadn’t mandated open access for network equipment in the late 1960s. Before then, AT&T prohibited anyone from attaching non-AT&T equipment to the network. The modems that enabled the internet were usable only because the FCC required the network to be open.
Melissa Quinn / @MelissaQuinn97 / January 27, 2015
A nonpartisan entity of the federal government has found that the Affordable Care Act will cost the government less than expected. However, the reduction in the law’s price tag comes among findings that millions of Americans could lose their employer-provided health insurance.
The Congressional Budget Office came out with a report yesterday revising the costs and budgetary effects of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
Though the agency found that the health care law is projected to cost the government less than originally thought, the CBO projected enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) will continue to increase.
The CBO attributed the drop in Obamacare costs to lower-than-expected enrollments and subsidies given to those who are eligible.
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The number of consumers receiving subsidies could decrease even further following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the court case King v. Burwell. The high court will decide whether Americans purchasing health insurance on the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov, are eligible for subsidies.
The CBO found that Obamacare will cost the government less than expected, but up to 10 million will lose their employer-based coverage.
Here are five takeaways from the CBO’s report:
Obamacare provisions related to health insurance will cost the federal government $571 billion through 2019, a 20-percent reduction from the CBO’s projections in 2010.
Up to 10 million Americans will lose employer-based coverage.
Beginning in 2018, up to 16 million more Americans will have health insurance coverage through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
Medicaid and CHIP will cost the federal government $59 billion more than previously estimated.
About 31 million people will remain uninsured by 2025.
Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05) :Mr President stop creating jobs at the IRS
january 21,2015
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05) issued the following statement tonight after President Obama delivered his State of the Union address to Congress:
“As outlined in tonight’s speech, President Obama is pressing hard to continue to advance his ideological agenda at the expense of our economy. The president talks about bringing in ‘more revenue’ and ‘investing’ it. But you and I both know that this is a fancy way of saying he wants to tax you more so he can spend more.
“The answer isn’t higher taxes; it’s about creating more jobs. It’s time for the president to stop creating jobs at the IRS and get out of the way of the job creators in New Jersey and the rest of America. The first step in this process is working with Congress to enact real, meaningful tax reform that will lower rates, simplify the code, and close special-interest loopholes.
“Given the recent election, it’s clear that the American people are eager to get our economy back on track. They want to be rewarded for their hard work and ingenuity, they want to maximize their opportunities so they can get ahead, and they want to forge a better future for themselves and their families. Republicans in the House and Senate are in total agreement with this plan and fully expect the president to help us achieve it.
“Although we are only three weeks into the new Congress, my colleagues and I in the House have already shown that we are serious about working together to make positive changes. We have advanced several bipartisan bills that will allow Americans to find better paying jobs, help American businesses to grow, and put more money back in American taxpayers’ pockets.
“It’s time to put aside partisan politics and advance public policies that help poor and middle class Americans, not those who curry favoritism in Washington. Mr. President, join us.”
FCC Chairman Strongly Hints He’ll Favor Internet Reclassification – CES
Chairman Tom Wheeler didn’t say so directly, but he left little doubt that he and fellow Democrats on the FCC will stand up to cable and telco Internet providers next month by adopting net neutrality rules that redefine broadband as a regulated, communications service. ISPs have said that such a move would chill investment. But for the last 20 years the wireless industry has been regulated under so-called Title 2 rules — with provisions limiting the FCC’s ability to set prices — and it “has been monumentally successful,” Wheeler said today at the International CES conference in Las Vegas. “There is a way to do Title 2 right …A model has been set in the wireless business.
A Beginner’s Guide to Austrian Economics
by Jason Peirce
“Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us.” – Ludwig von Mises
December 16, 2014—Of course, Mises above is addressing the need for “everyone” to understand basic, sound economics. This is why it’s heartening to see such renewed interest in the Austrian School since the 2008 financial crisis.
Here is a beginner’s guide in which we’ll briefly examine the basic principles and answer the basic questions about Austrian economics.
The “Austrian School” of economics grew out of the work of the late 19th and 20th century Vienna economists Carl Menger, Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek (though of course Austrian School economists need not hail from Austria). Austrians focus strongly on the analysis of individual human action. This is known as praxeology, the study of the logical implications of the fact that individuals act with purpose, from which all economic theory can be deduced. Austrians also note the correlation between greater economic freedom and greater political and moral freedom. This in part explains why Austrian economics is the intellectual foundation for libertarianism. Austrians rightly attribute the repeated implosions of mainstream Keynesian economics to the latter’s focus on empirical observations, mathematical models, and statistical analysis.
It’s important to note that Austrians sound a minority voice in economics and are widely marginalized by mainstream Keynesian economists in academia and media. Consider why this may be. It’s certainly not due to unsound theory. Perhaps because of academic group-think, since tenure is largely denied for Austrians? Or maybe because there is a lack of financial incentive to be Austrian, because Austrians cannot be “Jonathan Gruber-ized” and bought and sold by government, bankers, and the moneyed lobbyists and powers-that-be? What do you think?
The Austrian contributions to economic thought are best-evidenced when comparing Austrian economics to mainstream Keynesian economics. Here are 3 examples of how Austrians differ from Keynesians:
Example 1: The Role of Savings, Capital, and Prices
Keynesians assert that consumer and government spending drive economic growth and that GDP determines the strength of the economy. Seeing savings as the enemy of growth, Keynesians advocate government deficit spending, monetary inflation, and artificially low interest rates to boost “aggregate demand.” Of course, inflation, spending, and debt destroy savings, capital, and prices.
“Keynes did not teach us how to perform the ‘miracle of turning a stone into bread’ but the not-at-all miraculous procedure of eating the seed corn.” – Mises
On the other hand, Austrians rightly see that savings and production drive economic growth and determine the strength of an economy. Also, Austrians recognize that prices act as signals in the economy, and that natural interest rates and prices determine the amount of savings and production in the economy.
“The essence of Keynesianism is its complete failure to conceive the role that saving and capital accumulation play in the improvement of economic conditions.” – Mises
Having deprived Congress of regular order for nearly the entire tenure of the current administration, Harry Reid and his cohorts have milked every partisan advantage from this circumstance that they could possibly dream up. The same goes for his shamelessly executed plan to eliminate the Senate filibuster rule, so helpful in ushering committed statists and hardcore political progressives into important appointive federal government posts by depriving the political opposition of their only effective means of applying political leverage during the Senate confirmation process.
Senator Reid now stands ready to take full political advantage of his political opponent’s stated desire to restore Regular Order in the federal budgetary process, and to bring back the filibuster rule. Come January, leaders in the new majority party in the Senate will (or at least should) be torn between two different goals or aspirations, each with its own unique merits:
On the one hand, they will wish to repair the institutional damage done to the Senate and restore its potency as a strong and independent actor in our republican form of government under the U.S. Constitution. This means moving Congress out from underneath the dark cloud of executive branch dominance that has overspread all of Washington D.C. in recent year, as well as re-establishing the unique power of a single senator to stand in the way of ill-advised legislative measures, to the chagrin and consternation of reason-blind ideologues who rely on group-think and public shaming techniques to achieve their public policy goals.
On the other hand, they will wish to make of Congress an even greater and more insurmountable obstacle to the current administration’s stated goal of fundamentally transforming this country. Along the way, they will also be eager to cooperate freely with the House of Representatives to pass a series of clean bills for the president to sign or veto (most likely the latter) that will serve to draw into the starkest possible relief two competing and contrasting visions for how this country should move forward. To be the beneficiary of such an historic mid-term electoral landslide without then seizing and exploiting every available partisan advantage would be to appear naive and unwilling to engage in the largest and most momentous political struggle this country has seen since the Adams versus Jefferson ‘Clash of the Titans’ circa 1797-1800 (culminating, of course, with Jefferson’s historic inauguration, preceded that day by the remarkable scene of a humiliated but still office-holding John Adams emerging from the cavernous new executive mansion in the pre-dawn mist, hailing a ride in a passing public carriage like any other ordinary citizen, and high-tailing it back to New England to enjoy the rest of his life as America’s first one-term president).
So to say that Mitch McConnell could (or at least should) be experiencing mixed feelings about acting in good faith to restore the filibuster rule as it applies to Senate debates, or to plot a return to Regular Order in support of the Constitutionally-required process of preparing and passing an annual budget for federal governmental outlays, is the understatement of this rapidly ending but remarkable year.
Senate urged to approve $1.1 trillion spending bill to keep government running
DECEMBER 12, 2014, 4:03 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2014, 11:48 PM
BY DAVID ESPO AND ANDREW TAYLOR
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Friday urged the Senate to ratify a $1.1 trillion, House-passed spending bill that has roiled his Democratic Party, judging it an imperfect measure that stems from “the divided government that the American people voted for.”
What’s in the bill
The $1.1 trillion, 1,603-page bill awaiting a Senate vote is mostly spending choices, such as adding $5.4 billion to fight the Ebola virus or trimming the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by $60 million. But it’s also packed with a mishmash of “riders,” many of which couldn’t get through Congress on their own.
Here are some things the bill would affect:
SCHOOL LUNCHES: Eases rules requiring more whole grains in school lunches and suspends the lower sodium standards due to take effect in 2017, while keeping other healthy-eating rules. Some school nutrition directors — and some students complaining of yucky lunches — lobbied for a break from the standards championed by first lady Michelle Obama.
TRUCK SAFETY: Rolls back safety rules that were supposed to keep sleepy truckers from causing wrecks. The government’s rules had effectively shortened truckers’ maximum workweek from 82 hours to 70. The trucking industry fought back.
BANKING: Loosens rules imposed after the 2008 financial crisis. The change relaxes regulation of high-risk investments known as “derivatives” — rules that were imposed to reduce risk to depositors’ federally insured money and prevent more taxpayer bailouts. Banks said the crackdown stifled the competitiveness of the U.S. financial industry.
MARIJUANA: Offers a mixed bag for pot smokers. The bill blocks the Justice Department from raiding medical marijuana dispensaries in states that permit them. But it also blocks federal and local spending to legalize marijuana in Washington, D.C., where voters approved recreational use in a November referendum. It’s unclear what the practical effect of the spending ban will be.
PENSIONS: Allows some pension plans to cut benefits promised to current and future retirees. The change is designed to save some financially strapped plans from going broke. It applies to multiemployer plans, which cover more than 10 million people mostly at small, unionized employers, often in the construction business.
CAMPAIGN MONEY: Allows more money to flow into political parties. Under the new rules, each superrich donor could give almost $1.6 million per election cycle to political parties and their campaign committees. The comparable limit for 2014’s elections was $194,400.
THE SAGE GRO– USE: Says “no” to putting the greater sage grouse and three related birds on the endangered species list. Environmentalists say time to save them is running out as their sagebrush habitat disappears. But oil and gas companies and other businesses argued that protecting the chicken-sized birds on Western lands would hurt business and local economies.
LIGHT BULBS: Attempts to switch off federal rules that are making it harder to find old-fashioned incandescent bulbs. The bill extends a ban on the government spending money to enforce the ongoing phase-out of incandescent bulbs. It may not have much effect, since manufacturers and stores are already well-along in the switch to spiral bulbs and other energy-saving alternatives.
HUNTING AND FISHING: Prohibits the EPA from regulating lead in ammunition or fishing tackle. Lead in fishing sinkers and bullet fragments are being blamed for poisoning birds, such as loons and the endangered California condor. Republicans said EPA regulation would be overreach and just the threat of it was making it hard to find bullets in stores.
OFFICIAL PORTRAITS: Continues a ban on spending money on portraits of Cabinet secretaries, Congress members and other big shots, a Washington tradition that some lawmakers felt had gotten out of hand.
THE CAPITOL DOME: Spends $21 million to continue restoration of the leaky, cracked U.S. Capitol dome.
One day after House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi publicly chastised him for supporting the bill, the president said there were provisions “I really do not like.” At the same time, he said there were other portions that “fund health insurance, early childhood education, the fight against climate change, and expand manufacturing hubs to grow jobs.”
He offered his assessment as Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid also announced support for the legislation, further underscoring the split inside the party. The Democrats will lose control of the Senate in January because of heavy losses in midterm elections last month and will go deeper into a House minority than at any time since 1928.
Americans Trust Government Less and Less Because We Know More and More About How It Operates
Nick Gillespie|Nov. 16, 2014 10:09 am
Fifty years ago, FBI operatives sent Martin Luther King, Jr. was has come to be known as the “suicide letter,” an anonymous note suggesting the civil rights leader should off himself before his private sex life was made public. The information about King’s extramarital assignations was gathered with the approval not just of the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover but Attorney General Robert Kennedy and President Lyndon Johnson.
“There is but one way out for you,” reads the note, which appeared in unredacted form for the first time just last week. “You better take it before your filthy fraudulent self is bared to the nation.”
Thus is revealed one of the most despicable acts of domestic surveillance in memory. These days, we worry less about the government outing our sex lives than in it tracking every move we move online. It turns out that President Obama, who said he would roll back the unconstitutional powers exercised by his predecessor, had a secret “kill list” over which he was sole authority. Jesus, we’ve just learned that small planes are using so-called dirtboxes to pick up cell phone traffic. One of the architects of Obamacare publicly states that Americans are stupid and that the president’s healthcare reform was vague and confusing on purpose. The former director of national intelligence, along with the former head and current heads of the CIA, have lied to Congress.
Business groups are bracing for an onslaught of regulations, with the Obama administration bent on completing a host of the president’s unfinished policy goals and the midterm elections now in the rearview mirror.
Agencies across federal government are expected to drop a host of major rules over the next few months, with regulations running the gamut from calorie label requirements on restaurant menus to new rules for hydraulic fracturing and air pollution.
There are at roughly two dozen major rules that are scheduled to drop between now and late January, according to a review of the administration’s official regulatory agenda and rules now awaiting approval at the White House.
Groups including the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute said they are most concerned by expected costs associated with a slate of rules now in the pipeline at the Environmental Protection Agency.
“The EPA’s regulatory march is very concerning to the business community,” said Matt Letourneau, spokesman for the Chamber’s energy institute. “We’re fighting these regulations,” he added. “We’re trying to encourage EPA to listen to our concerns. We’re hoping EPA backs off or changes course.”
Sen. Tom Coburn’s annual “Wastebook” chronicles the most outrageous government waste—spending that is so frightening that it taxpayers ought to be scared.
Halloween is upon us, so what better way to document some of the wackiest examples than with the short horror flick above. https://dailysign.al/1sMxeNT
“Only someone with too much of someone else’s money and not enough accountability for how it was being spent could come up some of these projects,” the Oklahoma Republican said when releasing the book earlier this month.
Hillary: ‘Don’t Let Anybody Tell You’ That ‘Businesses Create Jobs’
Appearing at a Boston rally for Democrat gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley on Friday, Hillary Clinton told the crowd gathered at the Park Plaza Hotel not to listen to anybody who says that “businesses create jobs.”
“Don’t let anybody tell you it’s corporations and businesses create jobs,” Clinton said.
“You know that old theory, ‘trickle-down economics,’” she continued. “That has been tried, that has failed. It has failed rather spectacularly.”
“You know, one of the things my husband says when people say ‘Well, what did you bring to Washington,’ he said, ‘Well, I brought arithmetic,’” Clinton said, which elicited loud laughs from the crowd.
Angry with Washington, 1 in 4 Americans open to secession
By Scott Malone
BOSTON Fri Sep 19, 2014 7:41am EDT
(Reuters) – The failed Scottish vote to pull out from the United Kingdom stirred secessionist hopes for some in the United States, where almost a quarter of people are open to their states leaving the union, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
Some 23.9 percent of Americans polled from Aug. 23 through Sept. 16 said they strongly supported or tended to support the idea of their state breaking away, while 53.3 percent of the 8,952 respondents strongly opposed or tended to oppose the notion.
The urge to sever ties with Washington cuts across party lines and regions, though Republicans and residents of rural Western states are generally warmer to the idea than Democrats and Northeasterners, according to the poll.
Anger with President Barack Obama’s handling of issues ranging from healthcare reform to the rise of Islamic State militants drives some of the feeling, with Republican respondents citing dissatisfaction with his administration as coloring their thinking.
If there’s a day of the year to notice the paradox of organized labor, Labor Day is it.
Ira Stoll | September 1, 2014
here’s a day of the year to notice the paradox of organized labor, Labor Day is it.
The paradox is this: even as private sector unionism has declined, public sector unionism is in some ways more influential than ever.
The numbers tell the story. Among private sector employees — the ones who work for for-profit companies or non-profit organizations that are not part of the government — the percentage who belong to labor unions plummeted to a mere 7.5 percent last year, from 23.3 percent in 1977, according to UnionStats.com. By the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics’ more restrictive accounting, a mere 6.7 percent of private sector workers were in unions in 2013.
Among government workers, it’s a whole different story: 40.8 percent of local government workers — teachers, police, firefighters, librarians — belong to unions, according to the BLS numbers. The public sector rate drops to 35.3 percent (38.7 percent by the UnionStats.com numbers) if you include state and federal employees — postal workers, corrections officers. That’s so much higher than the private sector that it’s almost a tale of two labor movements — one, in the private sector, that is diminishing to irrelevance, and another, in the public sector, that retains substantial clout.
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