NCUA's Proposed Budget Boost Sign Agency Needs To Be Folded

The recent news that NCUA will up spending by 6%, the majority of which will go to fund 7.5% raises in pay and benefits for their 1,200 employees, sent a cold chill through my soul. It is the ultimate affirmation of a thought that has haunted me for several years. That thought is that we have literally become the slaves of our own government.

Several years ago I wrote that we needed to fold NCUA before they could destroy what remains of credit unions and our movement. My argument was that there was no longer a need for NCUA given their tendency to spend money on outrageous projects while credit union's and the environment they live in was becoming more and more toxic. Sadly, they have proven and continue to prove my point. Simply put, their priorities had become self-serving and destructive to credit unions.

This latest raid on members' money simply underlines the absolute disdain NCUA has for the governed and their willingness to continue to fiddle while Rome burns. I don't care how many surveys or consultants were paid to prove how they are underpaid; the simple truth is that government employees at the federal level are not feeling any recessionary pressures, as they pay themselves well and don't care what we have to do to keep up with their excess.

 

A Prime Example

NCUA has become the prime example. At the start of 2012 NCUA had 100 employees making more than $166,000 in salary. Add in a 20% cost of fringe benefits and that number makes total compensation around 200 G's. You math wizards already know what I'm driving atl 7.5% will drive that number for the 100th person to (ta da) some 213+. I don't know about you but we have had a wage freeze for the last three years. The jaunt to Disney was another example of "I don't care how much of their money it takes" etc, etc, etc. I am truly amazed that there are not at least one or two employees of NCUA that have not stood and decried this raid on member funds as the total rip offs they are.

So here we are; not only do we personally pay income taxes well into May to run our bloated, wasteful government, we now have to devise ways to fee members more to pay for the unrestrained piggery that is NCUA. And I don't want to hear from any liberal idiots who think you see a silver lining in this raid on the Treasury. There is absolutely no reason that can be made save the "paid for kind" given by salary consultants that can ever justify this crap.

 

A Suggestion

So once again I would like to make a suggestion. Firstly, don't wait for your trade association to lead the charge on this thievery. They will do a lot of posturing, but since they are doing their own fair share of Treasury raiding their argument will be hollow. Nope, it is left to us to try to stop this agency rip-off and it can only be done by communicating to the media what is going on. That cacophony of complaints should be continuous and have the decibel equivalent of a 747 in full engine test mode. The follow through should be to Congress with visits from its constituency and if it ultimately requires a march on Washington, so be it

The purpose should be clear and should not include "any suggested improvements" in NCUA, because it is far too late for anything good to come out of this jaded bureaucracy. Oh, and in the unlikely event that the president continues the pay freeze, don't forget that is the only thing that kept NCUA from doing it.

Dennis G. Moriarity, Treasurer-Manager

Unity Credit Union, Warren, Mich.

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