The wait is making some civil servants sick. Both literally and figuratively. They don't know whether to retire now, wait to see what happens or start burning up their use-it-or-lose-it sick leave.

Approval of the overall Defense package is a sure thing. The question is which version, the House or Senate plan or a combination of the two, will be sent to the President.

The House-passed bill (H.R. 2647) has a number of items that would benefit both active federal workers, retirees, and people who once worked for Uncle Sam who come back into the federal service.

The Senate-version of the Defense bill (S. 1390) does not, on purpose, have any of those pro-fed attachments. Some Capitol Hill watchers, who are paid to be optimists, say many if not most of the goodies will get the chop in conference if Senate conferees hang tough and the White House puts pressure on House members to cut costs.

Something similar happened last month after the Senate chopped all the pro-fed benefits out of the Tobacco bill which became law. The bill provided one major gain, a Roth option for the federal Thrift Savings Plan because it's a money-maker for the Treasury. But it knocked other items because of their future costs.

Senate-House conferees will decide what's in, and what's out of, the final version of the Defense bill. Items of interest to feds:

• Give workers under the Federal Employees Retirement System the same incentive to save sick leave currently available to CSRS employees. The House plan would let them credit their unused sick leave to their service time, at retirement, to boost their lifetime annuities. Although it would increase lifetime retirement benefit costs to the taxpayers, backers say it would stamp out the FERS-flu which, they say, costs the government $68 million plus each year.

• The Senate version include language that would permit retired feds to return to government service part-time without a salary offset based on their federal retirement annuity.

• Phase in locality pay for feds in Alaska and Hawaii and phase-out cost of living allowances. The effect would be to boost the retirement benefits of workers.

• Make changes in the retirement formula so that CSRS employees could go part-time to phase into retirement without reducing their final annuity.

• Permit former feds under the FERS retirement system who return to government to buy-back their previous service time. That would allow many of them to retire earlier, and to retire on larger benefits because of their total service time.

The gray-lining to this possible silver cloud comes in the form of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). When he forced the Senate to drop the pro-fed provisions he said, "....if you are a federal employee and unhappy with me trying to defeat this amendment, you should pay attention to something. There is no guarantee to your federal pension based on the economics we face today in this country. If you think it is guaranteed, you have another thought coming because the world economic system is going to determine whether we can honor that pension. That is what is coming. We are very close."

What Coburn said isn't popular inside the beltway (or to the Oklahoma feds at Tinker Air Force Base). But it might play, as they say, in Peoria!!!

Nearly Useless Factoid
by Suzanne Kubota

Near the center of the Earth, it's thought to be at least 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit (3,870 Celsius). I wonder if it's a dry heat.

To reach me: mcausey@federalnewsradio.com