AFGE Statement on GOP Budget Plan

WASHINGTON, March 12, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox Sr. today issued the following statement in response to the fiscal 2014 House budget proposal released by Rep. Paul Ryan:

"The House Budget released today should be an occasion for fresh outrage, even if its contents are as stale and odiferous as a garbage can holding the carcass of a dead dog.  Mr. Ryan again proposes to slash 10 percent of federal jobs and cut federal employees' retirement benefits by $132 billion over 10 years.

"Once again, he repeats the bald-faced lie that compensation for federal employees exceeds that of their counterparts in the private sector, when the reverse is true.  His conclusions are as inaccurate as his citations:  the CBO did not conclude that there was a 16% differential in favor of federal employees when comparing total compensation.  Even the CBO acknowledged that its data on benefits were unreliable, even though without that element of the comparison, there was no differential in favor of federal compensation.

"Of course, Paul Ryan has to resort to lies and name-calling to make the case for these cuts, because the truth would argue for increasing federal employment by bringing back in house jobs that have been wrongly outsourced, and improving federal employee compensation after more than two years of pay freezes and already enormous cuts to retirement that saved the government $122 billion over the next decade.

"The Ryan budget is also extraordinarily irresponsible.  Cutting 10 percent of federal jobs through attrition makes absolutely no sense. If all 20 aircraft mechanics at an Air Force base retire, should the Defense Department be prohibited from replacing any of them?  What would the government do under the Ryan budget?  Stop repairing aircraft? Or replace them with private contractors, who are both costlier and less accountable than federal employees?

"Mr. Ryan would also voucherize Medicare, cut taxes for wealthy individuals and corporations, and raise taxes on middle-class families.  His budget reflects bad values, bad intentions, bad management, and bad math.  We urge lawmakers to reject every element of this budget."

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest federal employee union, representing 670,000 workers in the federal government and the government of the District of Columbia.

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SOURCE American Federation of Government Employees