US. Trump Budget to Cut Federal Pensions
The Trump administration’s 2018 budget to be released tomorrow will include a range of proposed spending cuts. The budget will call for cuts to food stamps, Medicaid, and other entitlement programs. These reforms come on top of proposed cuts to discretionary programs released in March.
There is more good news. The budget will propose cuts to the fat benefit packages received by federal workers. An April CBO report found that benefits for the government’s civilian workers were 47 percent higher, on average, than for comparable private-sector workers.
One cause of the excess is that federal workers receive both a defined-benefit and defined-contribution pension plan. Pensions and other benefits for the 2.1 million federal civilian workers cost taxpayers about $80 billion a year (excluding postal workers). So federal benefits are a good place in the budget to tap for savings.
Full Content: Cato Institute
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