Non-Essential Workers

Writes Greg Privette:

Hi Lew,

I read the post on the Political Theatre:

“Sorry, I Don’t’ Feel Sorry For Furloughed Feds”.

I think in this day and age where many theoretically still middle class workers are struggling to get by amongst stagnate wages and ever increasing costs the government may come to regret the use of the term “non-essential workers”. It brings to mind several things over the years that have bothered me with respect to supposed hardship being experienced by government workers.

During the Air Traffic Controllers strike I was traveling on business. The local news in whatever city I was in were doing a human interest story on a local controller. The idea was to drum up sympathy for the claims of how underpaid they were by interviewing him at home with his family. The news crew, clueless as they are, made the mistake of running video as they came to his house. He was married with 2 or 3 kids, lived in a very nice house in a very nice subdivision, and had two nice cars and a nice boat in his garage and driveway. I remember at the time thinking I hoped to be that underpaid someday.

Another was a local news article after the hoax referred to as “the sequester” supposedly kicked in. Some of the defense contractors laid off employees. The article interviewed a guy who I believe was some type of computer programmer for Lockheed/Martin here in the Atlanta area. He wanted everyone to know there was a human side to the cruel cuts. He said he was earning 130K/year at Lockheed and people needed to realize he couldn’t just go out and make that much anywhere else! I’m sure this gave him no indication he might just be overpaid at taxpayer expense. I am also sure he wouldn’t consider himself a government employee.

The other two come from the last “financial collapse” of 2008-2009 and were at state level.

Georgia, being one of the more fiscally sound states only had to make modest cuts. One thing they did was to require all state employees to take two mandatory unpaid days off each year. Very cruel of course. Many state agencies decided to just close for two Fridays throughout the year. I read an article in the paper cautioning the citizenry that we wouldn’t be able to obtain our normal “services” from these agencies on whatever the upcoming Friday was. I wish I had kept a copy of the article so I could list the names of the agencies. It was virtually impossible for me to imagine anyone being affected if they had simply been shut down permanently. Anyone other than the bureaucrats they employ at least.

Lastly, during that same budget “emergency” the state started closing all the interstate rest parks and welcome centers at 7:00 every evening. This couldn’t possibly have saved much money but it goes a long way toward punishing everyday taxpayers. During that same period, where they couldn’t afford to keep rest parks open, I was driving somewhere and they were out mowing the medians and road sides on the highways!!

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