Article Title: Federal employees will pay over 5% more toward FEHB premiums in 2020
Snippet of Article: "...Some FEHB enrollees will see smaller premium hikes, while others will notice much larger increases depending on the type of their current plan. Some local plans, for example, are expected to go up between 7.9-and-14% percent in 2020.’
The popular Blue Cross and Blue Shield nationwide benefit plans will see..."
Article Title: What Needs to Happen for Civilians to Get a 2020 Pay Raise
Snippet of Article: "...President Trump is required to issue an alternative pay plan by the end of August, or else sizeable automatic pay increases, particularly in terms of locality pay, take effect as part of the 1990 Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act..."
Article Title: Mulvaney: Relocating Offices is a 'Wonderful Way' to Shed Federal Employees
Snippet of Article: "...White House chief of staff shares the administration's real objective in moving agencies outside of Washington..."
Article Title: A 26-year-old billionaire is building virtual border walls — and the federal government is buying
Snippet of Article: "...Along remote stretches of the U.S.-Mexico border, and on the perimeters of military bases around the world, Luckey’s vision was already becoming reality. Customs and Border Protection is using Anduril’s high-tech surveillance network as a “virtual wall” of interlinked, solar-powered sentry towers that can alert agents of suspicious activity, and the company has signed similar deals with U.S. and U.K. military branches..."
Article Title: The Pay Raise State of Play, and TSP Contribution Changes
Snippet of Article: "...Although the House last month approved an appropriations package that provides an average 3.1% pay raise for civilian federal workers—a 2.6% across the board raise, and an average 0.5% increase to locality pay—the Senate has not introduced any of its appropriations bills for consideration..."
Article Title: Tariffs Are Good for Workers
Snippet of Article: "...tariffs on steel and aluminum is long overdue and good for America because we need new economic rules that allow working families and our communities to thrive.
Wall Street CEOs and multinational corporations say the tariffs will start a trade war, but the truth is Wall Street has been waging a war on working people for decades.
The results have been devastating. As America has lost our industrial capacity with each shuttered plant and closed production line, workers lose jobs and communities lose a tax base and an economic cornerstone..."
Article Title: Trump says he's considering executive order to add citizenship question to census
Snippet of Article: "...The census forms are currently being printed without the citizenship question, officials have said.
U.S. District Court Judge George Hazel of Maryland ordered Justice Department lawyers to state by 2 p.m. Friday whether the government is ending its quest or whether it intends to keep..."
Article Title: Most federal employees would get a 3.1% raise on average under this House plan
Snippet of Article: "...Most federal employees would receive a raise averaging 3.1 percent in January 2020 and the central federal personnel agency..."
Article Title: OPM Proposes Changes to Probation, Special Hiring Authorities
Snippet of Article: "...Federal employees would not gain full appeal rights until they have completed their probationary periods regardless of the..."
Article Title: Despite recent decisions, FLRA chairman insists no ‘anti-union bias’
Snippet of Article: "...The House Oversight and Reform Government Operations Subcommittee questioned FLRA Chairman Colleen Kiko about her decisions to close two of the agency’s regional offices and end formal recognition of the FLRA’s own employee union within the past year..."
Article Title: VA shooting survivor victimized by ‘bizarre’ federal worker’s comp maze
Snippet of Article: "...Since most of his cases involve postal workers, Shapiro offered the example of a carrier who needs knee replacements after spending 25 years on the job. In that time, the worker has walked 35,000 miles and climbed 7 million stairs while carrying a bag that weighs up to 70 pounds, he said.
“Do you think his job contributed to some degree to his need for knee replacement surgery?” Shapiro asked rhetorically. “Nine out of 10 people will say yes and the tenth works for the Department of Labor. I get that case denied every single day by the Department of Labor..."
Article Title: TSP investors playing it safe, or missing big gains?
Snippet of Article: "...generally pay less than any other option in the federal Thrift Savings Plan, Uncle Sam’s in-house 401K plan for active duty and retired astronauts, NASA rocket scientists, current and..."
Article Title: Trump’s Pick to Lead OPM Has an Unusual Management Record for the Job
Snippet of Article: "...the announcement turned heads among those who once worked at the FLRA, the independent agency tasked with handling labor-management disputes. Former officials at the agency were puzzled that the White House would nominate someone to the government's top HR position whose previous executive branch leadership experience was marked by an exodus of employees and ballooning case backlog. Morale at the agency, as measured by governmentwide employee survey data, was the lowest in government by the time Cabaniss left the top job there..."
Article Title: Federal Retirement Claims Continue to Surge in March, But Backlog Is Down
Snippet of Article: "...The Office of Personnel Management reported last week that the annual surge in retirements, traditionally reserved for January and February, crept into March this year, although the agency has managed to reduce the backlog of claims.
Last month, 10,048 federal employees..."
Article Title: FBI accuses wealthy parents, including celebrities, in college-entrance bribery scheme
Snippet of Article: "...Investigators allege the scheme was run largely through Key Worldwide Foundation, which ostensibly was a nonprofit but, according to the FBI, was really a conduit for bribing college employees to get rich kids into elite schools..."
Article Title: Federal Employee Union Calls Proposed Budget 'A Kick in the Teeth' to Workers
Snippet of Article: "..."It's frankly unbelievable that, given the pain federal employees have just gone through, the President is proposing massive cuts and another pay freeze. It shows a complete disconnect with the needs of the civil servants who are America's workforce.
"This budget is a kick in the teeth to the federal employees who have suffered through years of pay freezes, cuts to their benefits, and attacks on their rights at work. Federal workers have lost more than $200 billion from cuts to their pay and benefits since 2011..."
Article Title: Here’s How Much America’s Rising Income Inequality Is Costing Social Security
Snippet of Article: "...ironically, it’s America’s highest earners—those who can most readily afford to contribute—whom policymakers have chosen to give a break. In 2019, every dollar they earn above the payroll tax cap of $132,900 will escape Social Security payroll taxes entirely.
As a result, while roughly 94 percent of workers contributed the full 12.4 percent of their annual earnings toward Social Security taxes..."
Article Title: Amazon will pay $0 in taxes on $11,200,000,000 in profit for 2018
Snippet of Article: "...According to a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), Amazon (AMZN) will pay nothing in federal income taxes for the second year in a row.
Thanks to the new Tax Cuts and..."
Article Title: IRS is now accepting tax returns, but some deductions are no longer allowed
Snippet of Article: "...Tax filing season is officially underway and starting Monday, the IRS will start accepting tax returns.
This year, you may want to file sooner rather than later, as reported by CBS..."
Article Title: AFGE Urges Workers to Join Shutdown Lawsuit to Be Made Whole From Loss of Income
Snippet of Article: "...All federal employees who are classified as non-exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act, have been deemed "excepted" by their agency, and worked for any amount of time on or after Dec. 22, 2018 without being paid are eligible to join the AFGE lawsuit.
To join the lawsuit..."
Article Title: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was the only House Democrat who voted against a bill to end the shutdown
Snippet of Article: "...Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was the only Democrat in the House of Representatives to vote against a short-term spending bill to end the partial government shutdown on Wednesday, because it would allocate funds to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), which she campaigned on eliminating..."
Article Title: Now Pelosi Owns the Shutdown
Snippet of Article: "...Donald Trump shrewdly flipped the table on Nancy Pelosi in the government shutdown standoff. He has now proposed a grand bargain on immigration: legalization of some 1 million so-called Dreamers..."
Article Title: Largest Federal Employee Union Files Amended Shutdown Lawsuit
Snippet of Article: "...After the 2013 shutdown, approximately 25,000 essential federal employees, represented by Heidi Burakiewicz, now a partner with KCNF DC, sued the government, arguing that the Fair Labor Standards Act requires that all employees, including federal employees, be paid on time for their services. In 2014, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims agreed and, in 2017, the court held further that the employees were entitled to twice their back pay because of the violation. However, even while the government is calculating the damages to those approximately 25,000 employees, the government has not required that essential federal employees be paid on time during the current shutdown.
KCNF DC is in the process of setting up an electronic sign-up system for people to use to join the case. In the meantime, questions federal employees have about the case can be emailed to the law firm at 2018shutdownlawsuit@kcnlaw.com..."
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| TurboTax Deluxe 2018 |
Article Title: Refusal to budge on border wall shows Dems still hung up on 2016
Snippet of Article: "...Like generals fighting the last war, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are fixated on the last presidential election. Their refusal to let it go and get on with governing in a divided Congress is a shameful sign of how radical their party has become since Trump’s election..."
Article Title: IRS won't issue tax refunds during government shutdown
Snippet of Article: "...During a shutdown, the IRS typically doesn't perform audits, pay refunds or offer assistance to taxpayers if they have questions, especially outside of the filing season. And while some of the lights may still be on in the building, the agency is currently operating with only 12.5% of its workforce, or fewer than 10,000 federal employees.
"It does throw a little bit of wrench into things," said Kyle Pomerleau, economist at the Tax Foundation. "To the extent that individuals are relying on the refund any delay is going to be a negative..."
Article Title: Trump orders federal pay freeze for 2019
Snippet of Article: "...Military personnel, who have been funded separately, will still receive a 2.6 percent raise.
Workers unions say Trump is pouring “salt into the wound” by delivering the pay freeze as 800,000 federal workers continue to shoulder the burden of a partial government shutdown. We’re now nine days in to the political standoff between the president and Congress over Trump’s requested $5 billion for the border wall..."
Article Title: Pay, leave and other questions answered about Wednesday’s government closure
Snippet of Article: "...Full time federal employees under a standard work schedule of eight hours a day, 40 hours a week will be excused from eight hours of work on Wednesday, Margaret Weichert, acting director for the Office of Personnel Management, said Sunday in a memo to agency heads..."
Article Title: U.S. consulate in Mexico attacked with grenade, no injuries
Snippet of Article: "...Mexican authorities are investigating an apparent grenade attack on the U.S. consulate in the city of Guadalajara, officials said on Saturday, underscoring the security challenges facing Mexico’s new president..."
Article Title: 'Serial killer': US border patrol agent charged with murder of four women
Snippet of Article: "...Ortiz was arrested after the fifth woman managed to flee. State troopers found Ortiz hiding in a truck in a hotel parking lot in Laredo at around 2am on Saturday. The border city is about 145 miles south-west of San Antonio.
“We do consider this to be a serial killer..."
