Take the Secretary of Transportation ans the comments in today's NY Times:
The U.S. air travel system faces widespread disruptions if automatic government spending cuts go into effect next week, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said on Friday, as the administration kept up a steady drum beat of pressure on congressional lawmakers to delay the cuts.
Now I know the Department of Transportation quite well. They are the same group who could never upgrade the air traffic control system. It is still working in a manner designed in the early 1930s! They could cut well more than any amount required by just firing every SES and GS 15 in the place! And we would actually see things get better. Imagine if they got the GS 14s and 13s as well. Why the transportation system could just go rolling on.
No, the person in charge is more interested in scaring the folks, playing the political game, and not taking one step to improve anything. Watch closely folks, what the do is what will impact the taxpayers the most while protecting the internal folks the least. So why do we have these folks in the first place? Does anyone remember?
Thus would anyone believe this person when the Times continues:
However, LaHood and other administration officials have repeatedly
denied that they have any discretion in applying the cuts or that they
are exaggerating their impact.
"The idea that we're just doing this to create some kind of a horrific
scare tactic is nonsense," LaHood said. "We are required to cut a
billion dollars. And if more than half of our employees are at the FAA
... there has to be some impact."
I would doubt so!
As an afternote I did the calculation of what we would save by just dropping all GS14-14s from the payroll. Salary alone is $26 Billion, the details are:
Now if we recognize benefits etc we would save at least another 50% or a total of about $40 Billion. Well there goes the Sequester.
As an afternote I did the calculation of what we would save by just dropping all GS14-14s from the payroll. Salary alone is $26 Billion, the details are:
| Salary | Number | Total ($000,000) |
| $136,771 | 121,531 | $16,621.92 |
| $155,500 | 61,404 | $9,548.32 |
| $26,170.24 |
Now if we recognize benefits etc we would save at least another 50% or a total of about $40 Billion. Well there goes the Sequester.
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