Don’t blame economy on federal workers

As a retired federal employee with over 40 years of private and public employment and an active member of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees, I wanted to set the record straight on the facts about the sequester. This is in response to the March 29 letter from David J. Schmidt. His feeling is that a letter by M. Murphy indicated that she wanted government to grow from the perspective of a federal employee. Federal employees have no control over the government growing or shrinking. In the last four years, federal government employee and state employee numbers have shrunk by hundreds of thousands.

I can speak from personal experience that even though the government agencies have fewer employees, they are expected to produce the same work. Government employees are not complaining as much about their poor treatment on the job and lack of cost of living raises for the last three years, but more about the sequester’s unnecessary cuts to programs that the real people in the private sector need to get along.

Mr. Schmidt mistakenly believes that government employees have a special retirement system that is overly generous. In 1985 President Reagan pushed through a new retirement system for federal employees which makes Social Security the basis of their retirement plan. Employees can contribute to at 401(k)-type system for an increase in retirement.

Mr. Schmidt mistakenly blames the bad economy on the federal employees. In fact the bad economy was caused by unnecessary wars and excessive tax cuts totally unpaid for which led to a great increase in government debt. Excessive greed and fraud by banks and equity firms led to financial collapse.

Blaming government workers for the errors of our elected leaders and corrupt financial corporation’s is unfair and untrue.

James Glover

Schaumburg