“We have the best civil servants in the world,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer (D: 5thj). Hoyer was speaking to a crowd Friday that agreed with his sentiment and clapped appreciatively. They were members of the National Association of Active and Retired Federal Employers (NARFE) St. Mary’s County Chapter 969 attending their regular monthly meeting at Olde Breton in in Leonardtown.
Most of the organization’s members are federal retirees. “We haven’t gotten to retirees yet,” Hoyer said about the effects of the attempts to get the country on a “fiscally sustainable path.” While Hoyer said that the fiscal pain needed to be shared, he insisted “the vulnerable don’t need to participate in the pain.” Hoyer who is 74 and eligible for Social Security and Medicare said he could afford to receive less but not those who depend on those entitlements for their survival. “The vulnerable ought to be held harmless,” he said, adding that he wasn’t in favor of a “Big Deal” that impacted everyone.
Hoyer said he represents 62,000 federal employees in his congressional district. For them, he said, “Yesterday is better than today.” He said that the rhetoric from many, including members of Congress, was unjustly critical of federal employees. “When they talk about government employees, they spit it out as an epithet,” he said.
Hoyer conceded there are some “bad apples,” as is any profession, who needed to be culled. But he said 95-96 percent are hard workers who could be making more in the private sector.
Hoyer noted that most people don’t have day-to-day contact with many of the federal employees who are protecting them. “They enhance the security of our nation.” Many of the Chapter 969 members are retires from civil service at Patuxent River Naval Station and Webster Field.
Hoyer was highly critical of the Sequester. “Everyone agrees it’s a bad policy,” he said. He likened it to buying something worth $250 from Macys on a credit card and then telling the credit card company he could only afford to pay $100 of the debt. He said anyone who did that would lose their credit and wind up in jail. “If you buy an aircraft carrier you pay for the aircraft carrier,” he said.
Hoyer noted that the only balanced federal budget in the last 30 years was under the Democrat Bill Clinton’s presidency and a Republican Congress. He said both parties needed to work together to solve the fiscal problems.
He said up to the time that taxes were raised on those making more than $400,000, the burden of austerity fell on civil servants.” Federal workers were the only ones asked to contribute to reducing the national debt,” he said.
