1. A city-block sized asteroid makes it through the Earth's atmosphere, smashes into Hyattsville, Md., thus causing major problems for people, pets and tomato plants in the greater Washington area.

2. Congress enacts quickie legislation forcing current feds to retire immediately or be forced to work longer, and wait longer, for pension benefits to begin.

So is it A, or B?

Answer: That was a trick question, because both events have about the same odds of happening while either of us is still employed.

Be that as it may, many federal workers, including a lot of old-timers who should know better, are panicked by reports that Congress is going to change the CSRS retirement program. Their fear: That Congress and the White House will quickly ramrod through a plan to change the retirement computation formula (basing annuities on the highest 5 year average salary instead of using the high 3-formula), and to make retirees wait until age 62 to get their first (and reduced) annuity check.

Ain't gonna happen, people!

This is just a drill!

It happens almost every year!

Here's the background. The Congressional Budget Office is required to come up with a list each year of ways the federal government could save money. Many of the items on it are serious. Others are just there because, while they would save money, nobody is going to touch them: Like eliminating the tax break for home mortgages. It would be a money-maker for the government but it ain't gonna happen.

A couple of regular items on the CBO savings list involve the federal workforce. One says it would save the government money if it based annuities on the high-5 formula (which is commonplace in the private sector) and didn't pay benefits until the retiree hit age 65. While those things would save money, as would eliminating the congressional gym, they aren't going to happen.

Almost every year somebody in Congress dusts off the cut-retirement-benefits idea. The media has a field day with it, groups representing feds rush to fight it and it goes away. Until the next time.

Well, the next time was June 4 of this year.

House Minority Leader John Boehner and Minority Whip Eric Cantor - at the urging of very, very conservative members of the GOP caucus - made the retirement-change proposals as part of a "policy agenda." That's not a bill, not a plan, just a wouldn't-it-be-lovely statement.

But when feds got wind of it, some of them flipped out. By the time it hit the internet, people were calling Congress, the media, or their union reps asking if they had time to retire before this heinous proposal took effect.

Boehner has plenty of federal workers in his district. Cantor (who represents one of the tonier suburbs of Richmond) has even more. Odds are neither one of them (truth be told) cares very much about cutting the benefits.

An expert on, and long-time observer of, Capitol Hill said "they (Boehner and Cantor) were probably egged on to do this by the problem children of the Republican caucus." His group, like other pro-fed, pro-retiree organizations, watches things like this but he agrees that it isn't going anywhere and it is not worthy of anyone advancing their retirement plans.

Meantime, he's a good explanation of the proposal-that-isn't-going-to-happen. The National Active and Retired Federal Employeesalerted its members and agreed to let us pass this on to you. So read & relax:

House Republican leaders have issued a set of Deficit Reduction Proposals including several impacting current federal employees. Best known among the group is a proposal to base retirement calculations on the "High 5" instead of the current "High 3" years of salary. NARFE denounced the proposal as an attack on the earned economic security of federal workers and annuitants.

The 20 page proposal can be found as a "pdf" from Eric Cantor's office: http://rsc.tomprice.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=131137

Nearly Useless Factoid
by Suzanne Kubota

Despite an internet full of reports to the contrary, there has NOT been "a 40 percent increase in bacon consumption in the United States." The San Diego Union-Tribune reports "according to the USDA, annual per capita pork consumption barely budged from 1996 to 2006." Perhaps to do its part to boost sales, the paper offers recipes with the article for bacon-wrapped tater tots, bacon brownies, and a bacontini.

To reach me: mcausey@federalnewsradio.com