“Washington, D.C.’s workers enjoy the highest salaries of any
U.S. city, with a median household income of $85,198,” recently
reported CNNMoney.
It’s even higher for the federal workers segment of the
city’s workers, with an average wage last year for federal civilian
workers of $81,258 per person (per person, not per household).
That’s over $30,000 more than last year’s average private-sector
wage. Add the cost of benefits and pensions and the average
compensation gap between federal and private-sector workers jumps
to nearly $62,000 per year — $123,049 vs. $61,051.
That doesn’t mean they work the hardest or that they’re
twice as smart.
Try phoning any of the major federal agencies in D.C. and
see how long it takes for someone to pick up the phone, or how long
it takes to get the right person in the right department who still
can’t provide a dime’s worth of help.
I got a letter last June from the main Social Security
office asking me to clarify something about my automatically
deducted contributions at work. They requested that I call an 800
number in Washington.
Knowing how things work — or don’t work — in D.C., I
ordered a Greek salad with feta, red wine and a turkey club on pita
and took a seat on the restaurant’s patio with my Wall Street
Journal and the morning’s local newspaper before I dialed the
800 number.
The phone began ringing in D.C. at five minutes past the
hour. My lunch order was delivered to the table after 10 minutes or
so and I had finished my salad, sandwich, wine and two newspapers
in about another 20 minutes and the phone was still ringing at the
designated office of the central planners.
Taking a chance on losing my spot in the phone queue, I
left my connected phone on the patio table and went inside the
restaurant to order another wine and to find something more to
read.
The phone was still ringing when I got back to my table.
Curious to see how much longer it would take for someone to pick
up, I stayed on the line.
It was 47 minutes when she finally picked up. I thought it
sounded like she was in Bangladesh.
I didn’t say anything about the wait. If I complained, I
thought they’d just hire even more people and raise my taxes, or
borrow even more money from Beijing. We’re already being forced to
turn over nearly 20 cents out of every dollar we earn, coast to
coast, from New York to Los Angeles, into this 68 square mile area
that’s the District of Columbia — and that’s not counting the
money that’s extracted from our wallets to pay the price of
ever-expanding federal regulations and mandates, and not counting
the various tax bites at the state, city, county and local
levels.
I got only a few seconds into telling her what was in the
letter from the Social Security office when she told me I had the
wrong phone number. I explained that her phone number was in the
letter but she said she didn’t know anything, didn’t have a clue,
and that I should make a visit to my local Social Security office
at such-and-such address. I told her that the office closed 10
years ago.
I thanked her, hung up the phone, gave up, and realized
again why we haven’t really won a war since the 1940s — unless you
count Grenada, code-named Operation Urgent Fury, but that just
lasted 37 hours.
