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[h=1]House GOP Doubles Down on $300B in Federal Workforce, Pay Cuts[/h] By Eric Katz
House Republicans doubled down on their plan to reduce the nation’s debt on the backs of federal employees, reissuing proposals in their fiscal 2017 budget plan that would dramatically cut the size of the federal workforce, as well as its pay and benefits.
In a report on the fiscal 2017 blueprint approved by the House Budget Committee last week, lawmakers brought back virtually every provision that federal employee advocates and most Democratic lawmakers opposed in the previous iteration. Absent from the report -- which the committee approved in a 20-16 vote -- were specific savings estimates, though lawmakers speculated in their fiscal 2016 measure the savings from federal workforce cuts would amount to more than $280 billion over 10 years.
Overall, the latest plan would slash non-Defense, discretionary spending at agencies by $887 billion below sequester levels through fiscal 2026. The Republican budget would call on agencies to meet those reductions in part by cutting their payrolls.
Agencies would reduce their non-national security employees by 10 percent through attrition; as Republican budgets have for years demanded, agencies would fill just one out of every three vacancies created by employees leaving federal service.
The Republican blueprint would require federal employees to contribute an equal amount to their pensions as do their agencies, effectively resulting in a pay cut of between 2 percent and 5 percent. Citing the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility, or the Bowles-Simpson report, the committee recommended phasing out the defined benefit portion of feds’ retirement package altogether. Shifting to only a defined contribution system would bring federal workers in line with “the vast majority of private sector employees,” the lawmakers said.
The plan would also phase out the Federal Employees Retirement System annuity supplement, designed to boost the Social Security benefit for young retirees. Republicans also backed reducing the rate of return on the Thrift Savings Plan’s most secure offering, the government securities (G) fund. Taken together, the committee estimated last year the pension reforms would save $127 billion over 10 years.
More:
House GOP Doubles Down on $300B in Federal Workforce, Pay Cuts - Pay & Benefits - GovExec.com
House Republicans doubled down on their plan to reduce the nation’s debt on the backs of federal employees, reissuing proposals in their fiscal 2017 budget plan that would dramatically cut the size of the federal workforce, as well as its pay and benefits.
In a report on the fiscal 2017 blueprint approved by the House Budget Committee last week, lawmakers brought back virtually every provision that federal employee advocates and most Democratic lawmakers opposed in the previous iteration. Absent from the report -- which the committee approved in a 20-16 vote -- were specific savings estimates, though lawmakers speculated in their fiscal 2016 measure the savings from federal workforce cuts would amount to more than $280 billion over 10 years.
Overall, the latest plan would slash non-Defense, discretionary spending at agencies by $887 billion below sequester levels through fiscal 2026. The Republican budget would call on agencies to meet those reductions in part by cutting their payrolls.
Agencies would reduce their non-national security employees by 10 percent through attrition; as Republican budgets have for years demanded, agencies would fill just one out of every three vacancies created by employees leaving federal service.
The Republican blueprint would require federal employees to contribute an equal amount to their pensions as do their agencies, effectively resulting in a pay cut of between 2 percent and 5 percent. Citing the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility, or the Bowles-Simpson report, the committee recommended phasing out the defined benefit portion of feds’ retirement package altogether. Shifting to only a defined contribution system would bring federal workers in line with “the vast majority of private sector employees,” the lawmakers said.
The plan would also phase out the Federal Employees Retirement System annuity supplement, designed to boost the Social Security benefit for young retirees. Republicans also backed reducing the rate of return on the Thrift Savings Plan’s most secure offering, the government securities (G) fund. Taken together, the committee estimated last year the pension reforms would save $127 billion over 10 years.
More:
House GOP Doubles Down on $300B in Federal Workforce, Pay Cuts - Pay & Benefits - GovExec.com
