Should Federal Workers Be Treated Differently
Than Private-Sector Employees?

Simply, they are money takers not money makers.

No, but some agencies actually have a purpose like the DOT (FAA, etc). And not all federal employees are employed by the USAID handing out tax dollars to every foreign entity they can find who hates the USA. Congress has known for years that USAID was/is a slush fund and yet, nothing ever happened to them. No, keep those CRs rolling along, i.e., keep funding USAID and others.

No. Federal workers are not a protected species. They are employees of the Federal Government. They are not elected. They serve at the leisure of the Government. Like private sector employees, they work until they are let go.

Frankly, they should have fewer protections. And lower pay. It should be considered a temporary, entry level position - a sort of Apprenticeship for learning the trade. Technically, payment should be optional, with regular audits to make sure you're not dipping into the till or selling us out overseas. Career shouldn't mean a damn thing unless you're in the Military. Same thing for the elected officials. Low pay, regular audits. You are SERVING your country - offering them your skills out of a sense of ensuring your nation has the best results, then resigning to take advantage of the wonderful thing you've crafted in the private sector. Like HELL you self-centered wimps are 'gracing us with your expertise'!! A career dog-catcher could do better!!!

Dems aren't 'enlisting' the ranks to protest - they are PAYING them - and the money may well be coming via USAID from MY tax dollars. Even FDR recognized the dangers of federal workers being allowed to unionize. This also needs to end.

Nobody, public or private, wants to lose their ability to pay their bills or support their families. Just because the private sector cans their employees without heart or any consideration does not make it noble or virtuous. People will usually go for job security over higher pay, and thats what I did when I hired into the civil service. I worked for a private outfit for a while. Got tired of the weekly firing threat meetings from managers who were themselves fired down the road a bit. Yes, the government needs a massive downsizing, but to expect the fired employees to cheer and dance in the streets over losing their jobs is just foolish.

If you have a job, it has a purpose. If you don’t do what you’re there to do, you deserve warning them being let go. I’m almost 80, retired and worked in one job or another since I was 16, even during college I worked part time. I don’t recall people being let go for no good reason. As a nurse, I worked in surgery for over 30 years. You were expected to perform at a certain level or you were let go. It’s understandable. To work for the government because of job security says a lot about government employees. If you don’t perform your duties, after warnings or probation, you should be fired. Government or private sector.

Short answer. No. I don't see the media crying over the losses of private sector jobs, and those people were actually producing something of value. Most private sector service jobs such as customer service are relatively low paying jobs and are looked upon by management as a necessary part of doing business and that the employee can easily be replaced. That is unless the service in question requires a specific skill such as an electrician or a plumber. I see most government employees as that customer service person that can easily be replaced, but who earns twice as much as their private sector counterparts.

Should Federal Workers Be Treated Differently Than Private-Sector Employees? No. Taxpayers that are private-sector employees want to know that government is acting diligently and efficiently with their hard-earned money.

Let's just say, for calculation simplicity, that the average taxpayer who makes $80k per year pays 12.5% fed tax on the gross income. That means that it takes 8 of them to pay for a fed worker's $80k wage. Every fed worker eats up many equal non fed's taxes. That's BEFORE any other fed spending, pensions, health care for them, travel costs, many etc. Now consider state and local taxes. This is why there are so many "fees" (taxes) and other hidden taxes on everything, literally everything. And yet they are still piling up insurmountable debt. Time to resolve and realign proportions.

There is a significant difference between private industry and government. Private industry has a set point to measure their expenditures against, their earnings. Expenses should ALWAYS be less than earnings because there would be no profit and no purpose to the business. Businesses exist to make money. When costs go up and profits are threatened, you have to either earn more or cut costs, including personnel. There can be deliberate trade offs where costs are allowed to grow in order to create more earnings but that cannot continue for long. Government has no set point. There is no way to measure performance of government by earnings and costs. Government doesn't earn anything. And the federal government, insanely, has no limits on how much it can be in debt. GDP in 2023 was 28 trillion. Debt in Feb. 2024 was 34 trillion. We owe more that the whole economy makes in a year. That is madness. Suppose we set a maximum debt ceiling of 1/3 of the last year's GDP. In the example above that would limit debt to a bit more than 9 trillion. The only exception to increasing the percentage of GDP would be at times of DECLARED war or by 2/3 vote of both houses of Congress and approval of the president. Such increases would last 2 years and require renewal after that. Like a business, government must be MUCH smaller and far more efficient. Cutting a trillion in spending annually would be a good start. DOGE is a good start but there is a LOT more work that needs to be done.

Quite frankly, even the private sector has gotten soft between the DEI nonsense AND their young employees being the product of helicopter parents. When Jamie Dimon orders his high paid JP Morgan staff back to their offices and they give him the middle finger and don't show up, and they aren't immediately fired, don't expect public sector employees to behave better. Dimon ordered his staff back in September 2023 after Labor Day ONE YEAR AGO. And he is still struggling to get them back. So, ladies and gentlemen, we have a problem in this country not only with public sector employees but an entitlement mentality of many employees. That said, we could probably cut by one half, the number of public sector employees and run a much better lean, mean and productive government. And Trump and Elon are the guys to do it.

Having been there, I'd say Federal employees are treated more along the lines of college professors (tenured/untenured), rather than your average private sector employee. #3, re "They serve at the leisure of the Government." Once that tenure kicks in, it takes more than a stick of dynamite to get rid of a Federal employee, even for egregious offenses. This is usually too much interference with the Government's "leisure", so it doesn't happen. And if the fired person re-applies for a Federal job, there is little chance of finding out why they left their last Federal job - privacy concerns, you know.

Heck no! to answer the Q in the headline.