Throughout the week, Federal News Radio has been covering the debate over federal employee pay.
From an analysis in USA Today on Monday, to a rebuttal from the Bureau of Labor Statistics yesterday, there is a lot of anger on both sides of the issue.
This morning, The Washington Times printed an editorial, The Federal Bonus Bonanza.
John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management, said there are glaring errors in the piece.
“The first line in the editorial says that the federal government is growing during this [economic] downturn and it’s a cause for alarm. . .That’s what the editorial says, here are the facts. There will be 2.1 million full time federal employees in this year. That is less than there were in the federal government when Lyndon Johnson was president in 1967. If you compare the growth in the size of our country, there are over 100 million more Americans today that those workers are serving.”
Berry said the government currently has fewer workers handling more work compared to 40 years ago.
He also said it is important to remember that more than half of federal employees work for the Defense Department, the Homeland Security Department or the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“I would ask The Washington Times which of those they would like to cut. Do they want to compromise our national security, our care for our veterans or the protection of our people against terrorism? I don’t.”
Berry said he is extremely upset about a part of the article that implied that federal employees do little other than sit at their desks all day.
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