Wednesday, July 15 2015
Washington, D.C.—The head of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) urged Congress this week to reject proposals to weaken the federal Thrift Saving Plan’s (TSP) G Fund. Congress is reportedly considering tapping the personal retirement savings of federal employees, retirees and members of the military to offset the Highway bill.
Nearly 92 percent—4.3 million—of the 4.7 million TSP participants have money in the G fund, which has $193 billion in assets. Many retirees or those approaching the end of their federal careers have all of their retirement savings tied up in that one fund, NTEU National President Colleen M. Kelley said in a letter to U.S. senators.
One proposal floated by House Republicans would lower the G Fund rate of return to 0.02 percent from the current rate of 2.25 percent.
Another calls for lowering the rate by 10 percent. President Kelley underscored that the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which runs the TSP, opposes the proposals.
“Any change to the G Fund would send a signal to the federal employees, retirees, and military personnel that the Thrift Savings Plan is no longer free from manipulation,” she wrote.
The NTEU leader dismissed the notion that G Fund savings could shore up the Highway Trust Fund, which pays for road, bridge and transit projects nationwide. NTEU also joined a Employee Thrift Advisory Council (ETAC) letter expressing its opposition and is signing on to a Federal-Postal Coalition letter.
“A federal employee needs the TSP to achieve a retirement income that is enough to live on. How can Congress change the rules that employees and retirees have relied on for decades in responsibly planning for their retirement in order to fund a highway bill?” Kelley wrote, warning that tinkering with the G Fund “would be a serious mistake, one not easily undone.”
The NTEU president noted that federal employees have already sacrificed through pay freezes and two pension contribution increases on new hires.
“Federal employees have already contributed over $159 billion to deficit reduction. … Federal employee and military personnel benefits cannot continue to be used as the source to finance non-related government programs and operations,” she stated.
NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments
my TSP has been in the stock plans since the day we could. the dolts at out plant who say stocks are risky, are the one’s with gambling problems and can not go 2 weeks without a loan from the inhouse loan shark at a 12% vig. no one ever went broke underestimating the stupity of a postal worker. by the way the TSP is not that smart either….they turned down a gold fund, but they let people take out car loans from a retirement fund”! if you put 10K into gold back then it would be worth more than 30K. that 35K car or truck maybe worth 5K….if you are lucky!
How about the people suggesting wanting to make cuts to …why don’t you take a pay cut give back your free health insurance. Start paying into social we the citizens would like to get your 6 figure retirement. …..we the workers have to suffer …we would love to retire
Leave the TSP funds alone. Federal/retired employees don’t need to bailout another Obama plan.
Once again the Washington elite are attempting to turn to
bullying federal workers. Our salaries, Health insurance,
G-fund, what’s next? You know the old saying… you can’t
screw your enemies so you might as well screw your friends!
If we were only a private entity of government without the
jurisdiction of those Self righteous a-holes! Eric Cantor
wanted to use funds from the 5.5 billion paid each year
for the same fund…look what happened to him. They love
to find ways to screw the fed workers. Young people would
be wise to stay away from these jobs because of greedy fat
cats that have created a dictatorship over us. These sharks
are mostly millionaires!!! and they want to screw the little guy.
The 5.5 bill has not been paid for quite some time now in
order for the post office to make payroll. So, they are
scratching and clawing at any way possible to bleed us to
fund other things. If they knew what they were doing from
the start their would be no need to fund it!!!! One day they
will all meet their maker…….whooo! what a day that will be.
Paybacks are a bitch!
They have already robbed social security, now they want to weaken our other path to retirement! They need to get spending under control and leave money that is not theirs alone!
Is this proposal even legal?
I am retired and it congress thinks they are going to use MY money they are kidding themselves. I will pull my money out and roll over to another company.
Are you sure this isn’t Greece?
This has nothing to do with highway funding. This has to do with forcing people out of the G fund and into stock funds to push the markets higher. Those members of congress are being pushed by Wall Street. Wall Street is chomping at the bit to get to that money. They need someone to sell to.
If Congress messes with the G fund interest rates, I will simply retire and move my money elsewhere.
Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Jimmy Carter deregulated the airline and telecommunication industries= thousands and thousands of blue collar jobs down the drain. Bill Clinton= NAFTA and GATT- MILLIONS of blue collar jobs moved off shore to mexico and communist china. Barry from Hawaii dumps hundreds of thousands of criminal illegal aliens into country that will keep wages of ALL blue collar workers down. but the cherry on top of all this was demonrat LBJ and his C-2 student deferment during the viet nam war……60,000 poor kids killed so the elite democrap kids could hide out the war at third rate colleges…….some taking 7 years to get a 4 year degree in beer drinking.your reward a crummy little civil service job that has stagnated wages and diversity scum leap frogging over you for higher paying jobs. Donald Trump 2016!!!!! hope he sells off PO to UPS or FDX!!!!!!!!!! only way to make what is left of PO workers great again.
Federal employees, military and domestic, never seem to be far from the probing eyes of assholes in Congress when it comes to potentially screwing us out of our hard earned retirement benefits. Why exactly Congress hates Federal workers is not easy to figure out, although the fact that we do have decent jobs that allow us to have a relatively nice standard of living no doubt pisses off GOP lawmakers, who want everything for themselves and their bosses. Republicans are after all they can grab by any means available, with no thought for wiping out all working class Americans.
Yet, because they have a well-oiled media machine that feeds absolute bullshit to millions of gullible fear ridden hate monger idiots, they stay in power. Democrats aren’t much better, but they do seem to have at least a small amount of respect for the intelligence of their voting base. Plus, with the enormous influx of Latinos in the U.S., who wouldn’t vote Republican under any circumstance, the future of the Democrats looks better than the GOP’s, with over a dozen crazy candidates running for President, and not one of them worth the powder to blow them to Hell or even have the skills to act even remotely Presidential. But in fairness, have we had a real President, a real leader among leaders, since FDR? I don’t think so.
But since my legislators from Arkansas are hard core Republican Tea Party lunatics, it’s pointless and a waste of time to talk to them about anything that doesn’t benefit guns, sucks up to the evangelical right or their owners, like the Koch Brothers and especially in Arkansas, the almighty Wal-Mart and Tyson, who are the real political bosses in this state through the help of some high placed investors and bankers in Little Rock. Ain’t it always like that? Well, there are smart people here, but there’s a lot more ignorant asses, people who defended the Duggars, support keeping the Confederate flag up, want religion imposed in public schools and are racist to psychotic degrees.
My wife and I recently returned from a trip to a different part of the country, and when asked where we were from, some folks politely said, after I told them it was okay to do so, that most people in the country outside the South consider our region to be ass backward, hate filled and extremely stupid. One person said they were embarrassed to have to be associated with way too many people in the South. But that’s the kind of people the GOP loves. Albert Einstein once said, “the difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits”.