PBS NewsHour “Then” Edition with Kevin Hassett
Kevin Hassett (chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers) talking to PBS NewsHour:
“Federal workers who are without pay as the government shutdown drags on actually have it pretty good.
A huge share of government workers were gonna to take vacation days, say, between Christmas and New Year’s. And then we have a shutdown, and so they can’t go to work, and so then they have the vacation, but they don’t have to use their vacation days. And then they come back, and then they get their back pay. Then they’re, in some sense they’re better off.”
And the American taxpayer is better off . . . how?
I think our resident Economists Robert and PGL have critiqued Hassett to some length previously. This is not something which can not be understood due to theory. Hassett exudes an arrogance which is difficult to ignore. “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.”
http://angrybearblog.com/2018/10/kevin-hassett-an…iscal-dishonesty.html PGL
http://angrybearblog.com/2018/08/kevin-hassett-in-lie-lie-land.html Barkley
http://angrybearblog.com/2018/09/kevin-hassett-ne…edial-arithmetic.html PGL
These are the most recent…over twenty posts, some back to 2012.
Dan:
Exposing issues to the sunlight always works. What a fool he is.
And then we have a shutdown, and so they can’t go to work, and so then they have the vacation, but they don’t have to use their vacation days.
In general that’s not true. Most federal workers blow down “use or lose” vacation days during the holidays. The “leave year” ends on 12 Jan 2019 this year, so federal workers who had scheduled leave during the holidays do in fact lose those vacation days. The lost “use or lose” vacation days do not roll over into the next year. They are simply lost. This is not particularly unfair to those federal workers who do not report to work if they eventually get paid back. It’s effectively the same thing as being paid (albeit later) while being on leave. But it is a huge problem for those workers who were compelled to come to work during the holidays who had previously scheduled leave over that time. For those workers it is a total loss of vacation time that was earned over the previous year. So hopefully Congress will allow “use or lose” to be restored; otherwise it’s just outright wage theft. The shutdown also creates a gap in retirement calculations. It’s also unclear what happens to lost 401k contributions as well as gaps in health and life insurance coverage over this period.
Kevin DOW 36000 Hassett has made some bone head statements in defense of right wing ideas. But people used to say he’s a nice guy. This statement was not only wrong headed but also incredibly cruel. In a normal White House, he would be asked to resign. But Trump likely put Kevin up to this obvious comment. Thanks for posting this.
It is mean spirited which is why it is here.