Congress Takes another Swipe at Federal Workers as Senator Proposes Workforce Cap and Reduction Bill
Thursday, August 12, 2010(National Federation of Federal Employees)
Senator
Orrin Hatch (R-UT) last week introduced S.
3747, the 2010 Reduce and Cap the Federal
Workforce Act, a bill that seeks to reduce
costs by diminishing the size of the federal
workforce.
The bill
would first require federal agencies to report
their workforce levels as of February 16, 2009
to the Office of Management and Budget. If
their current staff size exceeds that of
February 2009 levels, then they must reduce
their workforce through attrition until it
reaches that point.
Once
this milestone is reached, agencies will be
prohibited from hiring a new employee without
offsetting it with the loss of another,
effectively capping the federal workforce.
Exempted from the proposed legislation are the
Departments of Defense and Homeland Security,
in addition to the CIA, FBI, Secret Service,
and the White House.
“Placing
an arbitrary cap on the federal workforce is
just bad policy, plain and simple,” said NFFE
National President William R. Dougan.
“Not only will it shortchange the American
people on the vital services they receive from
experienced federal workers every day, it will
shift that work to contractors who have proven
to be more expensive and operate with less
transparency. This bill would cut services,
raise costs, and force the American taxpayer to
foot the bill.”
The
Reduce and Cap the Federal Workforce Act is
just the latest in a number of recent attempts
by some in Congress to degrade the federal
workforce in size and compensation. In May, a
similar bill was introduced in the House of
Representatives by Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY),
but it never came up for a vote. Later
that month, a measure proposed by Rep. Michelle
Bachmann (R-MN) was voted down when she
attempted to attach it to the annual Defense
appropriations bill. That same week, Senators
Tom Coburn (R-OK) and John McCain (R-AZ) wrote
up their own proposal that would have frozen
federal employee pay and performance awards.
This was also defeated, but only by a thin
margin of 53-45.