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Re: [TSPStrategy] A New Retirement Resource - OPM offers a five-step guide to the sometimes confusing retirement process.

Re: [TSPStrategy] A New Retirement Resource - OPM offers a five-step guide to the sometimes confusing retirement process.

What a joke. My packet was 100% correct, signed and set up. OPM wouldn't answer their phone when I called at 6 thru 8 months with only interim pay. I didn't get full pay until 9 months after retirement and now they won't reply to my request for documentation on survivor benefits for my wife. I hope OPM retirees get the same treatment they dish out.

Al Reble 


On May 26, 2023, at 4:39 AM, dlstox <dlstox@gmail.com> wrote:


https://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2023/05/new-retirement-resource/386775/

A New Retirement Resource

OPM offers a five-step guide to the sometimes confusing retirement process. 

It's great that the Office of Personnel Management has released a new quick guide to the federal retirement process, along with other updates to their website for federal employees who are planning to retire. The last attempt at explaining the process was way back in 1998, in a 109-page chapter of a handbook on the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System. And that chapter was written with agency retirement specialists in mind, not ordinary federal employees. 

Agencies, as part of their ongoing responsibility to provide employees with information about their benefits, are expected to make employees aware early in their careers about retirement issues, such as deposits for civilian and military service credit. The extent to which they do an effective job of explaining benefits has a direct impact on how smooth the retirement process is for employees. Federal workers who have attended my pre-retirement planning seminars have told me that some agencies do a better job than others. 

The retirement process is, on the surface, fairly straightforward. But all it takes is missing a few pages of documentation or forgetting to sign a document to throw the process off course. The newly released guide is only three pages long. But it includes some very important details about the retirement process and spells out the steps that employees must take along the way.

The new reference provides more transparency in the process of retirement by pointing out specific situations—such as having a having service with multiple federal agencies—that can significantly delay the process of finalizing your retirement claim. The guide breaks the process down into five steps, covering the period between an employee's retirement date and their case being finalized with the deposit of their first regular monthly payment.

The steps in between highlight the role of employing agencies and their payroll providers, and then the OPM part of the process, after it receives a retirement application from an agency. That includes preparing interim (or partial) retirement payments. Then comes the full OPM processing, which can take 50-90 days.

The guide is written in a conversational tone, and is easy to follow. If it helps reduce employee and agency errors in filing retirement paperwork, says Lori Amos, OPM's deputy associate director for retirement services, "our hope is that it will reduce the amount of time it takes to process retirement claims, and ultimately, a reduction in the backlog." 

In addition to issuing the guide, OPM has revamped the process of communicating with its Retirement Information Office. Those who call the office at 888-767-6738 will be directed according to their specific situation and the information they seek. Current federal employees will be told to contact their agency's human resources office. Retirees will be given five options to choose from: password assistance, tax information, reporting a death, insurance issues and all other inquiries. 

OPM also has made additional resources available online at its Retirement Services Support Center.

These improvements are nice, but they don't create a fully electronic retirement claims process or solve all of the customer service issues that have plagued retirees when they attempt to contact OPM to inquire about their benefits. Hopefully, OPM will be able to tackle these much greater problems in the near future. 

[TSPStrategy] A New Retirement Resource - OPM offers a five-step guide to the sometimes confusing retirement process.

[TSPStrategy] A New Retirement Resource - OPM offers a five-step guide to the sometimes confusing retirement process.

https://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2023/05/new-retirement-resource/386775/

A New Retirement Resource

OPM offers a five-step guide to the sometimes confusing retirement process. 

It's great that the Office of Personnel Management has released a new quick guide to the federal retirement process, along with other updates to their website for federal employees who are planning to retire. The last attempt at explaining the process was way back in 1998, in a 109-page chapter of a handbook on the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System. And that chapter was written with agency retirement specialists in mind, not ordinary federal employees. 

Agencies, as part of their ongoing responsibility to provide employees with information about their benefits, are expected to make employees aware early in their careers about retirement issues, such as deposits for civilian and military service credit. The extent to which they do an effective job of explaining benefits has a direct impact on how smooth the retirement process is for employees. Federal workers who have attended my pre-retirement planning seminars have told me that some agencies do a better job than others. 

The retirement process is, on the surface, fairly straightforward. But all it takes is missing a few pages of documentation or forgetting to sign a document to throw the process off course. The newly released guide is only three pages long. But it includes some very important details about the retirement process and spells out the steps that employees must take along the way.

The new reference provides more transparency in the process of retirement by pointing out specific situations—such as having a having service with multiple federal agencies—that can significantly delay the process of finalizing your retirement claim. The guide breaks the process down into five steps, covering the period between an employee's retirement date and their case being finalized with the deposit of their first regular monthly payment.

The steps in between highlight the role of employing agencies and their payroll providers, and then the OPM part of the process, after it receives a retirement application from an agency. That includes preparing interim (or partial) retirement payments. Then comes the full OPM processing, which can take 50-90 days.

The guide is written in a conversational tone, and is easy to follow. If it helps reduce employee and agency errors in filing retirement paperwork, says Lori Amos, OPM's deputy associate director for retirement services, "our hope is that it will reduce the amount of time it takes to process retirement claims, and ultimately, a reduction in the backlog." 

In addition to issuing the guide, OPM has revamped the process of communicating with its Retirement Information Office. Those who call the office at 888-767-6738 will be directed according to their specific situation and the information they seek. Current federal employees will be told to contact their agency's human resources office. Retirees will be given five options to choose from: password assistance, tax information, reporting a death, insurance issues and all other inquiries. 

OPM also has made additional resources available online at its Retirement Services Support Center.

These improvements are nice, but they don't create a fully electronic retirement claims process or solve all of the customer service issues that have plagued retirees when they attempt to contact OPM to inquire about their benefits. Hopefully, OPM will be able to tackle these much greater problems in the near future. 

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[TSPStrategy] A Labor Economist Predicts Stability in the Fed Pay Trendline, But With a Big Caveat

[TSPStrategy] A Labor Economist Predicts Stability in the Fed Pay Trendline, But With a Big Caveat

https://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2023/05/labor-economist-predicts-stability-fed-pay-trendline-big-caveat/386712/

A Labor Economist Predicts Stability in the Fed Pay Trendline, But With a Big Caveat

"There is always a long lag between when higher inflation starts to eat into a fed paycheck and when that paycheck starts to respond to inflation," one compensation expert says.

The White House this spring proposed a 5.2% pay raise for civilian federal employees for 2024, while federal employee unions and their allies in Congress—in the recent period of high inflation—want 8.7%. 

But any boost won't get locked in until later in the year—and seems far off as feds, the country and the entire world economy hang by the thread of stumbling debt limit negotiations between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the Biden administration. Indeed, it will be some time before anyone will know definitively what next year's federal compensation looks like. Bottom line, though: to most feds and those who track their pay and benefits, the trend has been inadequate pops in pay, over many years—including during the long and now gone period of much lower inflation.

What is the longer-term outlook for public sector pay? And what are some of the global forces that could affect that outlook? This week, Government Executive talks with Peter W. Philips, a labor economist and compensation expert on the faculty at the University of Utah. Philips offers his insights on where federal pay and benefits may be heading—as well as the debt limit standoff

Q & A with Peter W. Philips

Government Executive: As a labor economist, what would you say to feds and unions who say a strong boost is needed—citing a very real erosion of fed pay vs. the cost of living over decades? 

Philips: First of all, we all have to note that there's no such thing as a single condition or situation for those on a federal wage. Some people in the federal government, for what they do, earn really good money. But some others do not. And some others are just scraping by—at least where their fed pay is concerned. On this last group, for example, in Utah where I live seasonal and temporary federal employees with the National Park Service are not paid very well. It's just the way it is at that end of federal employment. Point is, depending on what kind of work you do, federal employment—against inflation or certainly compared with the private sector—offers compensation with some well-known strengths and weaknesses. 

Government Executive: Could you go a bit deeper on this, with examples? 

Philips: It's all there in the data. At the top end of federal government pay, you have various highly qualified experts, scientists and career technical experts of many kinds. Generally, they're paid well. Often perhaps not as well as their high-end counterparts in the private sector, as statistics show. But in many such jobs the overall compensation can be pretty close. These employees don't have trouble having a house, putting food on the table, driving a relatively new car and so on. Now, for other feds who don't earn as much, federal work is a tighter trade-off. On the one hand they have a very secure job. On the other hand, as I said, they tend to get paid less than those with comparable work in the private sector. 

Government Executive: But, beyond that well-known tradeoff, the trend in real fed pay is objectively downward. As with the better-publicized nosedive in Social Security retirement, where buying power is down 36% since 2000, and despite nominal boosts, fed buying power is down nearly 10% in a decade—so what would you advise feds or prospective feds facing this? 

Philips: Inflation is a very real factor. Look—your pay depends on what you earn and put in your pocketbook. But also what happens with prices on the grocery store shelves. It's a horse race between your paycheck and inflation. Up until the end of the pandemic recession, for a long time inflation was contained compared to historic trends. But then inflation picked up sharply, surprising many people—even economists. In the last year or so, no one has been sure whether that high inflation would stick around, or whether it was a blip. 

For feds, I would say my point here is that government, generally, is never going to be first or early at all in adjusting to inflation. It always wants to avoid ratcheting things up quickly, as policymakers hedge against whether this kind of situation is just a blip. There is always a long lag between when higher inflation starts to eat into a fed paycheck and when that paycheck starts to respond to inflation. Having said that, yes, federal government compensation was not keeping up with that even lower inflation we experienced in recent decades.  

Government Executive: In past interviews, as fed pay lost ground against even low inflation, you called it "surreptitious pay cuts" and "slow-speed wage cuts." With that past take in mind, and today's higher inflation, what's your future take on the economy the fed pay's buying power? 

Philips: First, again I have to point out that erosion in the buying power of the average paycheck has not been unique to the government sector. It's happened in the private sector, too. It's been happening to state and local employees, for that matter. As for my future take on things, there's data but predicting is a hard thing. That said, I'm a betting man. And I bet that inflation will continue its recent trend of slowing down—as it has been for the past six months, at least. 

Government Executive: That's a happy vision for feds—and if it happens can you predict a little more deeply what that might mean for feds? 

Philips: Whatever the trend turns out to be, as I said private sector employers are quicker to respond to inflation—both in raising wages as inflation increases and in lowering wages in the face of deflation or moderating inflation. That's because, first, government—lawmakers and policymakers—just moves more slowly. Second, it's because the labor market is different for government. Greater job security on offer means the kind of person attracted to federal employment is often its own unique universe. There is much less turnover once people are there. In our economy, high turnover industries are leisure, hospitality or construction. Low turnover industries are government, education, health and so on. The stability of jobs and people in government just adds to the fact that wages move—well, glacially isn't the right word. But more slowly. This all has implications for federal employees. 

Government Executive: With pay erosion in both the private and public sector, does federal employment offer any additional "ace in the hole" advantages beyond greater job stability? 

Philips: Look—in a world where job security is becoming increasingly precarious, very much so in the private sector especially, this is a very important factor. Greater job security available in the government sector remains sufficiently attractive for people to hang on to those jobs even when their paychecks are eroding. That is what we see on this. And, yes, beyond stability,  benefits for public sector employees also remain generally better. 

Government Executive: How would you characterize the state of federal benefits? 

Philips: Circling back to what I said earlier, on average—while we see public sector pay still tends to be lower than private—its benefits continue to be more generous, right? It's in the data. And, I'll just tell you as an anecdote, I'm a professor at the University of Utah. Our benefits are generous. I had to replace one of my knees and I am covered for as much rehabbing as necessary. That's better than many of my private-sector friends. Better benefits are a fact for federal employees as well as other public-sector employees. And, I'll add another advantage beyond that: feds also have defined benefit pensions to go along with any of their other retirement savings. Most private sector employees no longer have such benefits. All these advantages—job security, better benefits and defined-benefit pensions—are very valuable to public sector people, and they tend to offset lower salaries. 

Government Executive: Even with better benefits, when wages erode in value people get nervous. You say the data gives you optimism for a continuing downward drift in inflation. But economists note that wages can rise and feed higher inflation. So, aren't you worried about a possible "wage-price spiral"? 

Philips: No. Most of our recent inflation, according to the data, came with the pandemic due to a breakdown in fragile supply chains—across our globalized economy—which meant many things became scarce and expensive. I don't think our rising wages have much to do with the problem now or in the immediate future, so I don't think we are facing a wage price spiral. Now with inflation hanging on, there can be a "knock-on effect"—meaning wages can feed inflation's acceleration, somewhat. We saw this back in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly when inflation accelerated during the Vietnam War and the 1973 OPEC oil price spike. Unions even negotiated cost-of-living provisions in their contracts, But very, very few contracts have those agreements today. 

Government Executive: Finally, the elephant in the room: The danger of a debt ceiling default. Your thoughts, as the deadline nears and Congress might need at least a few days more to pass whatever's negotiated? 

Philips: We all—feds and the entire world's economy—rely on the U.S. federal government paying its bills pretty much on time. If the current debt ceiling standoff doesn't end, it could be catastrophic. For feds, yes they might see their pay and benefits delayed even in a brief lapse. But, far worse, our country's advantages could be lost to a "Humpty Dumpty" effect, where if our brand cracks even temporarily, can you really patch it up and reestablish certainty around the world? My biggest concern: If we're talking a breach lasting 30 or 60 days past deadline, that's a five-alarm fire—and not just for feds. We're not talking just worsening inflation or a higher cost of borrowing anymore. We're talking a serious downturn in the U.S. and world economy, with corresponding long-term massive deflationary, unemployment and other effects. We cannot afford this or future political failures over the debt ceiling. 

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Re: [TSPStrategy] TSP Roll Over Advice?

Re: [TSPStrategy] TSP Roll Over Advice?

More investment options, but more fees. 

Thanks,
Nicholas Prietti 
Syracusesoldier@gmail.com
315-489-1684

On May 13, 2023, at 4:42 PM, ShaneBro via groups.io <s.guy75=yahoo.com@groups.io> wrote:

In the last 6 months has anyone rolled over their TSP into a brokerage account?  Any words of wisdom?  Pitfalls?  How log did the transfer take?  Thank You

Re: [TSPStrategy] TSP Roll Over Advice?

and yet, when my spouse did this twice and I once, all 3 times it went directly to our IRA accounts at our brokerages where we then purchased individual stocks in our IRA accounts

You __may__ want to check again just to be sure

On Tuesday, May 23, 2023 at 10:11:00 AM EDT, ShaneBro via groups.io <s.guy75=yahoo.com@groups.io> wrote:


BTW I recently called TSP.  They still mail roll-over checks, YOUR Money  (!) to your next custodian by standard mail!  An irresponsible way to convey what could be tens of thousands of dollars.  They can't spend $9.00 and buy certified mail?  Too much trouble for them?  Of couse they could enter the 21st century and do an electronic funds transfer.

On Monday, May 15, 2023 at 12:04:26 PM EDT, winfield100 via groups.io <winfield100=yahoo.com@groups.io> wrote:


C & S Funds last 2 years, not so great
Inline image

C & S Funds since Oct 7th, 2022, turning upwards, C better than S, but flat last few months
Inline image



On Monday, May 15, 2023 at 10:16:52 AM EDT, Mermaid <mermaid99521@gmail.com> wrote:


Not yet here is what I found out. 
12/28/2022 All rollover checks are malied  to your brokerage go through Standard USPS and there is NO option for a higher priority USPS mailing or even a tracking method.   NO USPS, FED EX etc...  Check is made out  "to the benefit of your name and brokerage name".  Spousal consent required, a form will be sent via email to spouse to answer questions.  After that, Takes the check 3 days to get mailed out, 5-7 bus days for USPS delivery to brokerage.  And yes your brokerage account has to be at least 5 days old.  Make sure you specify the deposit in a like for like account.  IRA to IRA,  Roth to Roth.

You have more options to invest in, ETFs with a brokerage.  It's safer with a good etf because the experts are trading within those funds and they have more info than you do.  I hate the fact that with TSP you have to schedule your trade hours or the next business day, buy or sell.  Since you do not know what the price will be upon execution, market can tank on your sell order or go up on your buy order.  With an ETF it's real time.
 
Call your plan administrator (the company that sends you your statements) and let them know you want to roll over your assets to your new account. 
 

Re: [TSPStrategy] TSP Roll Over Advice?

BTW I recently called TSP.  They still mail roll-over checks, YOUR Money  (!) to your next custodian by standard mail!  An irresponsible way to convey what could be tens of thousands of dollars.  They can't spend $9.00 and buy certified mail?  Too much trouble for them?  Of couse they could enter the 21st century and do an electronic funds transfer.

On Monday, May 15, 2023 at 12:04:26 PM EDT, winfield100 via groups.io <winfield100=yahoo.com@groups.io> wrote:


C & S Funds last 2 years, not so great
Inline image

C & S Funds since Oct 7th, 2022, turning upwards, C better than S, but flat last few months
Inline image



On Monday, May 15, 2023 at 10:16:52 AM EDT, Mermaid <mermaid99521@gmail.com> wrote:


Not yet here is what I found out. 
12/28/2022 All rollover checks are malied  to your brokerage go through Standard USPS and there is NO option for a higher priority USPS mailing or even a tracking method.   NO USPS, FED EX etc...  Check is made out  "to the benefit of your name and brokerage name".  Spousal consent required, a form will be sent via email to spouse to answer questions.  After that, Takes the check 3 days to get mailed out, 5-7 bus days for USPS delivery to brokerage.  And yes your brokerage account has to be at least 5 days old.  Make sure you specify the deposit in a like for like account.  IRA to IRA,  Roth to Roth.

You have more options to invest in, ETFs with a brokerage.  It's safer with a good etf because the experts are trading within those funds and they have more info than you do.  I hate the fact that with TSP you have to schedule your trade hours or the next business day, buy or sell.  Since you do not know what the price will be upon execution, market can tank on your sell order or go up on your buy order.  With an ETF it's real time.
 
Call your plan administrator (the company that sends you your statements) and let them know you want to roll over your assets to your new account. 
 
[TSPStrategy] Fed Pay and Benefits Could be Hit Hard by Debt Ceiling Wheeling and Dealing

[TSPStrategy] Fed Pay and Benefits Could be Hit Hard by Debt Ceiling Wheeling and Dealing

I was out for a few days last week for a graduation.  Here's more news .....


Fed Pay and Benefits Could be Hit Hard by Debt Ceiling Wheeling and Dealing

There are a few scenarios that could be bad for federal workers in the debt ceiling negotiations.

In recent weeks as the standoff in Congress over raising the debt limit continues to drag on, alarms are increasingly rising that this country's political leadership might stumble, fail to legislate effectively and provoke an unprecedented default on government obligations. The current federal debt limit remains at $31.4 trillion, and the deadline to avoid default is June 1. What effect might all of this have on federal pay and benefits? 

Well, union leaders say one of the proposed measures from House Republicans – slashing discretionary spending at domestic agencies to fiscal 2022 levels – would burden feds in particular. The bill is not expected to get approval in the Senate and President Biden said he would veto it.

But, if the government runs out of the ability to borrow, among the first to be hit could be feds -- after all, as in a shutdown, the government would not be able to issue pay or manage many benefits obligations until the crisis is resolved. 

Alternatively, one way for lawmakers to buy more time to negotiate -- in theory -- might be to delay or alter payouts to its own employees and contractors. 

This week, Government Executive probed just how troubling the current impasse is with political scientist Don Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, as well as co-author with William D. Eggers of Bridgebuilders: How Government Can Transcend Boundaries to Solve Big Problems.

Q&A with Don Kettl 

Government Executive: What is your take on Congress's long delay in passing a debt limit boost -- forcing reliance on "extraordinary measures" to fund federal obligations? Where is this headed? 

Kettl: In recent years, in our very politicized times, Congress has sometimes delayed approving needed increases in the debt limit right up to the deadline. However, in the past it was clear to most of us that lawmakers would find common ground and a way to get to a solution -- and they always did. But this time, at this late date a couple weeks before the deadline, it is still really not clear what a solution might look like. And that is making this crisis very real for everyone. 

Government Executive: For federal employees, can you discuss the harms here -- possibly in terms of delays or problems with pay or benefits?  

Kettl: Yes. Among some federal employees there are very real and growing concerns. With the debt ceiling crisis coming down to the wire, some feds are trying to figure the situation out. Will they be reliably paid in the coming months? Will the government possibly even be shut down for a while? Or even, in a more fundamental way, are some important programs that federal employees and agencies are working on likely to be slashed or cut altogether? And why wouldn't federal employees worry? In the news, there are unprecedented proposals and ideas being floated in Congress -- not only about what might happen if government suspends debt payments, but on what kind of deals might have to be made downstream of that to perhaps quickly reduce federal spending overall. All this would of course have big impacts on federal employees, their jobs and families and meanwhile at work on their ongoing ability to try to make sure that they can fulfill their missions. 

Government Executive: But isn't it likely that as usual there will be a deal, just before deadline? 

Kettl: Look, even if a deal is reached tomorrow or next week -- or heaven forbid at midnight on May 31 -- we have to accept there's a risk that already there has been so much disruption to our normal government and business processes -- with so many unprecedented ideas of not paying bills and people bouncing around -- that we could see at least some continuing long-term damage from this crisis. What kind of damage? I mean from here on in, for a significant period, there might be a sense among many feds at all levels that in their work they are walking on eggshells in their work. Or, to use a different metaphor, that the rug might be about to be pulled out from under them. In properly financing government, we have never seen a political and financial threat this potentially damaging. That fact alone is clear to me and it is already hurting the morale of government employees -- including their confidence that their pay is safe and their work is appreciated. Obviously, in the ongoing political negotiations the specific threat to feds is not the first item on anybody's agenda. But these effects on public servants really should be considered. Do you believe in the security of your job? Do you sense some uncertainty in counting on timely pay? These are some of the questions already weighing on public servants as they go to work every day.

Government Executive: As the impasse continues -- possibly past the deadline -- we hear GOP pols propose tinkering with fed pay or benefits to keep government open. Your thoughts? 

Kettl: That's true. There are all kinds of very novel things being tossed around Capitol Hill now, as ideas on how to save enough money to avoid or delay government defaulting on its obligations, at least short-term, as debt limit negotiations stretch out toward the deadline. But the aim of these ideas is often not just to save money -- by getting a new cap on spending or the like. Instead, the proposed cuts are aimed at items that -- in a fantasy kind of way -- could allegedly both reduce spending and meanwhile score political or ideological points with voters. That's certainly the case, in my view, as we hear Republican politicians and pundits saying, "Hey, let's just suspend fed pay for a while" or "Let's curb or shut down operations at one of what we consider to be less necessary agencies." 

Government Executive: About the politics of this, many people hear "feds" and automatically think "D.C." and "Democrats." But our readers know most feds live far from D.C. -- and that many vote Republican. So, couldn't the GOP's recent debt-ceiling angle of attack on feds backfire? 

Kettl: Great question. It is important to remember that 85% of all federal employees work outside the Washington area. That's especially clear when you start looking at the feds who do a lot of government's frontline work. Most of so many agencies -- the Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, the Customs and Border Protection and so on. Not by any means are all or even most of them liberal Democrats. This is just one of the reasons that the House GOP's push against a clean debt ceiling boost is shaping up as a collision. Think of the political effect, for example, of just the ideas being floated of not paying federal employees. It's going to be an issue, colliding with, for instance, the CBP folks involved right now in intense work in the frontline battle right now over the end of Title 42. Leading Republicans are at the same time saying we want our feds to stop the flow of illegal immigrants, but at the same time are talking about suspending or cutting pay for the people in charge of doing that work! It is creating an inevitable contradiction and collision. 

The same disconnect will be in play over many government functions -- from the indispensable work of employees at the Federal Aviation Administration who staff air traffic control towers, to the Department of Agriculture's food inspectors, to the National Park Service folks who run our parks. Think about it, the morale implications inside government as well as the political implications in the minds of impacted workers. And then there are the potential effects on the public. To take another example, look at the recent problems with the Food and Drug Administration that caused great concern over baby formula -- still not fully resolved, right? The agency apparently didn't have enough food inspectors to visit plants and ensure manufacturers complied with federal safety regulations. All of these frontline functions that feds do all around the country are services that most people would be shocked if, as a result of arguably needless hardline debt ceiling negotiations, end up getting curtailed or cut off. What if in a few weeks, federal employees aren't being paid or they can't come to work, or -- in a worsening financial crisis over the debt ceiling -- millions of people are stuck at airports because TSA screeners and FAA air traffic controllers work has been shut down, and CBP agents can't process those who have just arrived? It's potentially one nightmare after another.

Government Executive: You've listed a lot of likely practical problems in the event of default or slowed payments to avoid default -- but couldn't you add summertime fires and maintaining confidence among our federal wildland firefighters, right? 

Kettl: Sure. That's true. We are headed into a summer with forecasts for worse than usual severe storms and fire threats. Whether it's tornadoes, hurricanes or flooding, you have to think too, about disruptions to the role of FEMA in helping people who are caught in upcoming disasters. 

Government Executive: Could this breach or near breach on the debt limit create problems for recruiting new feds this summer -- including from the new crop of graduating students? 

Kettl: Yes, and that's very important to federal agencies and the provision of future services. You and everyone who tracks federal hiring knows that for current employees and students graduating that there are lots of lots of job options out there. Work at federal agencies is already a tough sell for many. I often talked with my students about federal service, and mostly  they overwhelmingly said no, they didn't even think that they could master or spend the time on the application process. These days, too, the added problem is that younger people don't think government has the same kind of impact. And impact is critically important for Gen Z workers. The debt limit crisis will not help to build confidence or interest here. 

Government Executive: Finally, what if the debt limit issue is resolved just before the deadline? Do you see any other effects beyond a dip in morale and a lesser hit to markets? 

Kettl: Yes. First, whatever increase is approved will of course not be permanent. In fact, because it the easiest and most likely outcome is a short-term boost in the ceiling.  That means Congress and the White House might be right back at the same place soon. In the longer term, the situation -- just how hard it has been to come to any agreement -- shows this could remain a serious issue. It's terrible -- we haven't done this in the past and we don't need to keep doing this to ourselves. If some of our leaders want to play chicken, there are other safer and more appropriate issues for that -- measures on legitimate policy differences. Remember, the U.S. is the only country in the world that sets itself up for this kind of ongoing crisis on money already promised and effectively spent -- and there's no good reason for a fight here at all.


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