Some thing has been nagging at me during this supposed government shutdown. I wanted to wait until it was re-opened (temporarily) before saying anything. This certainly could have went on for 3 months, maybe even 6 months, but I figured with tax return season just around the corner, that was NOT going to happen. Recent polls have the president’s approval of the shutdown at around 30%. It was bound to end.
While I feel bad for Federal workers who had to either work without pay (they will get back pay) and especially workers who got furloughed and NO pay for over 30 days, I wondered where all this panic for food bank relief for Federal workers came from?
Since I have been on my own (18 yrs old) I have never taken SNAP benefits, unemployment benefits or food from a food bank or soup kitchen. I’m not bragging. I have gotten a couple small government grants that have totaled under $2,000 and have borrowed money from time to time from my grandparents (and paid most of it back).
I guess when I have been faced with challenges, I didn’t go running for handouts or charity. I find it hard to believe that Federal workers, especially employees who get many great benefits and if you are tenured over 40 days in vacation and holidays a year, that they didn’t have enough in savings to buy groceries and pay bills for a month.
Really?! C’mon!
I will agree, our president and congress don’t help matters, but hey, we elected them, we are the only ones to blame. It also doesn’t help that restaurants around town were handing out free pancakes and beer to every poor soul who got a month long unpaid vacation. You are not helping the situation. Sympathy is one thing, handouts are another. Instead we should be targeting our dismay over the shutdown towards changing what is going on in DC, and takes the courage to throw these lawmakers out.
Like I said, if this shutdown would have went longer than 3 months, then I would see the concern, but I figure like the rest of us who don’t work for the Feds but pay those that do, most of them would have just found other jobs or drawn unemployment.
Now that the shutdown is over, maybe a Federal worker can afford to buy me a pancake and a beer.
Imagine how desperate fast food restaurant workers would be if we had a shutdown of their work places. If FED workers can’t make it for a month, what would Johnny Taco do?
*********NON GERMANE NOTICE****************
I just got my 2018-19 tax bill in the mail from the County.
My SF School opt out costs are $ 80.17 a year. That’s $ 6.68 a month. What happen to the “$ 2 a month” thing?
Granted, my house might be worth a little more than the average property that they were suggesting in their “$ 2” comment, but it isn’t worth 3+ times as much as the average home…
My point exactly. When Capital One and Raven Industries had large layoffs (not furloughs) where were all the sympathetic restaurants in town handing out free food?
As for your tax bill, I noticed mine was a lot higher also for the opt-out. My assumption is that is the accumulation of opt-outs over the past couple of years, something they failed to mention when ‘selling’ us the bond. I was also surprised to see that the city takes alot more in property taxes than the county does.
I just checked last year’s tax bill. It was $ 1164.57 for the year. Now, it is $ 1261.49. So, the increase for our modest home is $ 96.92 from ’17 to ’18. So where is that extra $ 16.75 coming from? I guess merely from an annual increase, which does not need opt out approval, huh?
I also noticed that my 2017 tax bill acknowledges a $ 80.33 opt out cost, too, which is found within the $ 1164.57. So the $80.17 mentioned for 2018 does not include past opt outs. So what was suppose to be $24, or $30 in my case – based on the honest evaluation of my home – has somehow become $ 80.17. That $ 50.17 difference might not seem to be much, but how can $24 ,or $30, becoming $50.17 be true transparency?
Hook, line and sinker!
I told people the $2 argument was hogwash.
But where is that $ 16.72 coming from, in my case? Is it just a part of an annual increase, as I suggesedt? That would be a 1.43% increase for my home, if it is, which itself is a $ 1.39 per month increase. So in many ways, or close to it, we were already getting a $2 increase even without the opt out….. Which would then allow the spin machine to claim that the “$2” comment was really a part of a $4 a month reality, which then makes the $6.68 per month – in my case – far more acceptable, right?… Yah, acceptable if you forget that the “$2” has know become $4.68….. If there is something I don’t understand here, then I welcome constructive criticism, but for now, “Hook, line, and sinker!”…….
Oh, here is an other good question. When they talk about a $185,000 home value in that Argus article, are they talking about taxed value or market value? Usually tax value is 20% less than actual market value, is it not? Because, if that is the case, then my home would fall below the $185,000 value from a taxing sense, so then my increase should be less than $2 per month due to the opt out based on the Task Force claim, which makes it even further from my actual $6.68 increase, does it not?
#TransparencyIsATerribleThingToWaste
#DoMoreMathItGetsWorse
There has been Home appreciation and there’s inflation. However, local government can’t be trusted. They’ll always take more than promised. I lived in Colorado and property tax increases priced me out of my home. Some states have moratorium protection. Taxes don’t go up until you sell your home. It’s sad when government prices a senior out of their home.
Why is it that federal workers I know drive new cars and live in middle class neighborhoods? Their pay scale is high for this area. If they’re not smart enough to keep a reserve, get a payday loan or pawn your jewelry like the rest of us.
the only difference between a federal employee and the common man- their pay day loan would have had a zero per cent interest rate on it as this was offered by a number of lending institutions
I cannot speak for all federal jobs, and all personal situations. For myself, a former government employee, two paychecks in arrears would have never been a problem. For me to understand? Headscratcher.
This post has hung in the back of my mind for the last few days. I have a job that affords me a little bit of a cushion but I couldn’t make it 30 plus days without a paycheck. Student loans, medical bills, gas ans bills in general. Many furloughed enployees won’t get back pay. Also, the federal employees who were ordered back to work without pay can’t fix ile for unemployment nor could they work a different job when they were working for free. Congrats Scott on getting though your life without a hand up. I would think one so well of as yourself wouldn’t be so concerned with educational taxes. Now I know.
Rachel, I would agree with you if I was someone who just graduated from college and was in a new position in the private sector. But a tenured Federal Employee should have enough money to get by for 4 weeks without pay. While I’m sure it wouldn’t be ideal, and would dip into savings, I just think Federal employees running to food banks TWO WEEKS after they are furloughed looked desperate and pathetic. Everybody wants a handout these days and no one has any humility anymore.
Imagine for a minute it is out city employees facing a shutdown. They have over 1500 total employees. 400 are part time: zero benefit who cannot work more than 28 hrs a week. And NO, they are not all school kids working in the parks dept. in the summer. The government agency I worked allowed a 20% part time no benefit workforce when I retired a dozen years ago. I have been told thT number has increased considerably today. This might be where this is coming from? But tenured fulltime. Can’t see the need for anything like foodlines.