The Trump administration’s 2018 budget to be released tomorrow will include a range of proposed spending cuts. The budget will call for cuts to food stamps, Medicaid, and other entitlement programs. These reforms come on top of proposed cuts to discretionary programs released in March.
There is more good news. The budget will propose cuts to the fat benefit packages received by federal workers. An April CBO report found that benefits for the government’s civilian workers were 47 percent higher, on average, than for comparable private‐sector workers.
One cause of the excess is that federal workers receive both a defined‐benefit and defined‐contribution pension plan. Pensions and other benefits for the 2.1 million federal civilian workers cost taxpayers about $80 billion a year (excluding postal workers). So federal benefits are a good place in the budget to tap for savings.
The Washington Post reports that the Trump budget will propose these reforms:
- Increasing the required worker contribution to defined‐benefit (DB) pension plans.
- Basing DB benefits on the average of the top five salary years rather than the top three.
- Ending cost of living increases for DB payouts.
These would be reasonable and long‐overdue changes. Indeed, a better reform would be to phase out DB benefits for federal workers altogether. After all, just 13 percent of private sector workers even have DB plans. Federal compensation packages should reflect typical packages in the rest of the nation.
The Washington Post said, “The thought of Trump’s assault on federal retirement programs becoming law enrages federal employee leaders.” It certainly does. The paper quotes union leaders calling the proposals an “outrageous attack,” “downright mean,” and “beyond insulting.”
On the contrary, trimming the 47 percent advantage in benefits enjoyed by federal workers is a sensible attack on overspending. Furthermore, it is mean and insulting to taxpayers to give gold‐plated pensions to workers inside the government bubble, especially since those favored few also have much higher job security than the rest of us.
See here for more thoughts on federal worker pay.
