Comments on: RPB vs. HCR

By: TJ

TJ — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 12:49:47 +0000

Jeff,
You’re right in that it’s needless disparaging. I do think, though, that it is factually true, for DoD contractors at least. Check out the amount of contracting dollars since 2000:

http://www.fedspending.org/fpds/fpds.php?sortby=u&maj_agency_cat=97&detail=-1&datype=T&reptype=r&database=fpds&fiscal_year=&submit=GO

I tend to push the negative language when it comes to defense dollars because that spending too often gets a free pass from taxpayers. Lockheed Martin is threatening to issue “you might be fired” letters to ALL of its employees as sequestration marches forward. Is sequestration the best way to cut defense dollars? No. But neither is LM’s tactic a good way of doing business. Imagine of GM had threatened to lay off ALL of its employees as the bailout was debated. They’d be publicly exorcised. No such reaction to the LM announcement.

So, yes, “war profiteers” is absurdly disparaging, and I should probably be more careful with my language. It’s also something we should think about smartly as federal spending needs to be cut, though.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 03:20:20 +0000

Wow, contractors are war profiteers? I would like to think someone who claims they work in the federal government wouldn’t fall prey to that kind of thinking.

That’s just disparaging on so many different levels that I don’t know where to begin.

By: TJ

TJ — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 18:14:44 +0000

Dawn,
I think thanks should go to you for wading through the whole thing. My federal workers bit was mostly trying to draw HCR out a little. On an individual level, I agree with you. One’s employment doesn’t change one’s responsibilities.

Here’s a subtext to my statement I do agree with, though, and it’s less on federal workers per se and more the private-side complex that surrounds them. You’re not going to get rich working for the federal government. Pay is literally capped. You can get rich, though, contracting for them. The most pejorative term would be “war profiteer” for some of the things we’ve seen since 9/11. I get it, these companies are providing a necessary service, but the biggest houses you see in McLean or Clarksville or wherever aren’t built by GS-14s. They’re built by program managers for huge defense contractors or owners of tiny intel support shops. I think these people have a greater obligation to contribute, or at the very least I hope they recognize the base source of their gains. I think part of this attitude might be driven by the number of people I’ve heard complain about the size of government…who have spent an entire adult life profiting handsomely off of it.

By: DawnP

DawnP — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:56:55 +0000

Interesting discussion, gentlemen. Thanks for sharing it with the rest of us. RPB, I’m wondering if you can elaborate more on your theory regarding the stronger “moral obligation” of federal workers to give. Are you suggesting that because federal workers’ pay is derived from tax dollars, that they have more of an obligation to “give back?” That makes no sense to me. (And yes, I am a federal worker — and I do feel a moral obligation to give back to my community, but that has nothing to do with how my salary is funded.)
Couldn’t you just as easily argue that, as someone who’s chosen a career in government, aka public service, a federal worker is ALREADY contributing the the community and therefore has LESS of a moral obligation to contribute financially as well? Particularly for those federal workers who are making significantly less money in the public sector than they would doing a comparable job in the private sector? (I’m just playing devil’s advocate – I don’t buy this argument any more than I buy the one I think you’re making. My own view is that my moral obligation to give back to my community comes from my status as a human being and a member of the community, and is not affected one way or the other by the fact that I happen to work for the government.)