Protect America's Heartbeat

ACTION ALERT National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association

America's federal employees protect this country’s heartbeat – but they're under attack.

Federal employees ensure our food is safe and our air is healthy. Some spend their days fighting the spread of infectious disease, while others raise the alarm whenever a storm is coming.

We depend on federal workers in all 50 states to keep America strong. And they've already sacrificed pay and benefits to help solve our nation's budget woes, even though they didn't cause our economic crisis.

Yet politicians are trying to turn federal employees into scapegoats and are pushing for hurtful cuts to health benefits, retirement annuities and services we rely on every day. It's not right – and we need to speak out now.

Tell your senators and representative: Federal workers Protect America's Heartbeat. Reject additional cuts to their pay and benefits. You can read the full text of the letter below.

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Your letter to Congress

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I am writing to urge you to oppose any proposals to make additional cuts to the earned federal civilian retirement and health benefits of federal workers and retirees, to further freeze federal pay or to reduce the federal work force.

There is no public policy basis to accept reductions to federal civilian retirement since, according to the Congressional Research Service, the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund is fully funded and actuarially sound. For that reason, I am deeply troubled by a proposal in the Fiscal Commission's final report to create a "Federal Workforce Entitlement Task Force" to make recommendations to Congress to cut federal civilian and military retirement benefits by $70 billion over 10 years.

Even more disturbing is the report's plan to require our public servants to pay an increasingly higher share of Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) premiums and use the so-called "Chained" Consumer Price Index (C-CPI-U) to set cost-of-living adjustments. Both proposals would serve to further erode the benefits public servants have earned doing the nation’s work.

Freezing or cutting pay sends the wrong signal to the best and brightest workers federal agencies will need to recruit and retain to make government operate more efficiently, prevent the next terrorist attacks, fight two wars, cure diseases, provide assistance to unemployed and disabled Americans and treat wounded military personnel and veterans. And with 60 percent of all federal workers eligible to retire in the next five years, we can ill afford to lose our most talented and experienced employees.

Federal workers protect America's heartbeat and keep our nation strong. They have already sacrificed pay to help tackle our nation’s budget woes. For that reason, I urge you to defend the integrity of a system that provides wages, health and retirement benefits compensation to 4.6 million federal workers and annuitants.

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