E-mail to the editor: More on government's people issues

FCW is doing a series of editorials focusing on the issues that presidential candidates should be talking about and offering some recommended changes. The first one was on people issues. Read it here.

It spurred the following e-mail:

Two items to note for you:

1. When eliminating any term, even "human capital," it must have an equivalent replacement. Please do not suggest a negative without a positive replacement. As for "forgetting we are dealing with people," I think that is an ignorant and almost belligerent way to open a discussion about a problem.

2. Pay for government workers... you mean the second largest welfare program in this country. After working in the Pentagon for three years and more than 10 follow-on consulting jobs, I can state without a doubt that 30 percent of all government employees actually work, and the other 70 percent should be removed from the workforce completely and/or have their pay reduced.

Pay for performance can never be fixed in a system that does not know how to have accountability with action behind it at every level. In other words, fire the incompetents, then there would be 70 percent fewer employees! But wait, that is almost impossible in the federal government.

And while we are at it, why does the federal government have a union for its employees? One of my co-workers at the Pentagon was coerced into joining it by having CPO requests lost or worked on slowly.

I am just tired of old-boy network loyalties rather than true brotherhood for all. Next you are going to start a debate about the use of the word "niggardly" in discussions about financial planning and have another hard-working employee resign due to ignorance.

My suggestion for you: Focus your discussion where it matters. What services are we as Americans willing to cut to reduce our budget and create a debt-reduced future for the next generation?

I would be very disappointed to see pay discussed without figuring out what will be cut, or who will be laid off, to make that happen.

Your next topic: Spending for today rather than investing for tomorrow, the new American way of life, and the death of multigenerational families through the expansion of Social Security (32 percent total budget in, 37 percent out, 5 percent loan year over year, plus 6 percent for interest payments).