The unintended consequences.

When you make changes in haste-they seldom turn out to be good ones. What I am about to chronicle in this post is an example of a change made by these guys-that is 100% at odds with what they supposedly want from those they inflicted it on.

In their haste to show their rotund and ill-informed followers how manly they could be about cutting the federal budget, several really stupid cuts were made-that will end up costing the government more in the long run. The Reed Amendment to HR1 would do away with compatibility pay matches for Foreign Service officers serving overseas. Reed , an asshole Congressmen from New York’s 29th district proposed this as stopping “an automatic pay raise” to FSO’s when they leave DC and move to their posts overseas. Besides the obvious grandstanding of a cut that is in fact not a cut-it is a bad idea and counterproductive to getting the kind of people America wants in its foreign service.

The Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act of 1990 was adopted as a way to reduce the government-wide disparity between the public and private sectors and is a basic component of salary for all civilian Federal employees, based on annual survey data collected by the Department of Labor. As a result of this law, every federal government employee working in the United States received “locality pay” as part of their salary. Until 2009, the only United States government civilian employees who did not receive this part of their salary were entry-level and mid-level Foreign Service personnel serving their country overseas. All others, including senior level State Department officers, and other agencies represented overseas, such as CIA officers under State Department cover, DOJ and DHS, have locality pay factored into their base salary.

Locality pay for Foreign Service personnel and other federal employees serving in Washington, D.C. is now approximately 25%.  Under the law prior to 2009, Foreign Service personnel serving abroad sacrificed this part of their salaries and took large pay cuts to their base salaries.  Those posted in Washington earned more money than colleagues posted in Pakistan, Yemen, and Beirut to name a few.  As a result, because retirement packages are based upon base pay (including “locality pay”), Foreign Service officers representing their country abroad received smaller retirement packages than their colleagues who stayed in Washington. This was not sustainable and in 2009 a bi-partisan solution was found to correct this policy problem. Closing the pay gap is not a pay raise — it is a correction of a 17- year-old unintended inequity in the worldwide Foreign Service pay schedule—an inequity that grew every year.

Today thousands of Foreign Service employees serve in hardship assignments around the globe, which now constitute nearly 60% of all posts thanks to: the fact that there are too many nations and a lot of them are basket cases and because that was what was stated as a goal for the state department. One of the persistent raps against the state department is that they are doing enough to support the War on Terror.  As business model-handing someone a 24% percent pay cut when they complete FSO training is a bad way to encourage that behavior. There has been strong bipartisan recognition that it is time to invest in diplomacy and development.  Penalizing Foreign Service employees — specifically those of us at the junior and mid-level — whose mission is to serve overseas to advance and protect our national interests by cutting their base pay undervalues the importance of the Foreign Service.

Now I have personal experience with folks who work with and in US Embassies. As a part of my stint in Romania last year-I was embedded in the Embassy splitting my time between it and the Romanian Ministry of Defense. The State Department personnel I worked with were very professional-put in some pretty decent hours and were always courteous and helpful to the things that I needed to get done.

I also have another kind of experience with Foreign Service Officers-the kind I think guys like Reed just don’t appreciate.

When my sister was killed in Panama back in 1997-it was a Consular Officer, working in American Citizen services in the Panamanian Embassy who helped our family get through a very rough time. He went above and beyond what he was required to do-to make sure all of the logistical arrangements and the other ancillary things that happen in an incident of that kind were handled with grace and dignity. As result-I did not have to get on a plane and fly down there, such was the totality of the work that he did. He has our undying gratitude-and he certainly earned every penny of his salary that month.

And in the end -it really does not save a whole lot of money, especially when you hold it up to the amount we are wasting supporting three wars in places we have no business being.

I have written my Senators and asked them to ensure this gets deleted from the continuing resolution. You should too.  America gets talented people to apply for the Foreign Service, the selection process is long and competitive, and contrary to popular belief-they do not all start out as fresh college graduates. Some actually transition from other careers later in life-usually taking a pay cut to do so because they want to serve their country. The country should incentivize the service-and enjoy the results. You get what you pay for.