re: "Current Events (Or Why We Deserve This Pay Cut)"

Donna at Email From The Embassy ("After three years in Beijing, we're headed to Amman, Jordan. For family and friends who want to follow our adventures, this is it...") has a great summation and some alarming ideas.

Money quote(s):

"In a nutshell: our pay is on the line. Life After Jerusalem and several other bloggers covered the details, which amount to this: Foreign Service officers currently have to take a steep pay cut when they move from DC to their overseas posts, due to something called "locality pay." Several years ago, when the powers-that-be were convinced this was a problem (why should I move to Yemen, or Libya, or Beijing, or really anywhere, if I'm going to make 25 cents on the dollar more to stay in DC?), they moved to phase in overseas locality pay so that this disparity would disappear over time. But now, led by Mr. Reed, some of our politicians have decided to call this an "automatic pay raise," and they want to do away with it. Only for State Department employees, mind you: other agencies overseas get this locality pay, and no one's talking about touching it."

Great summary. Covers all the bases. Well, doesn't mention that the pay gap doesn't apply to members of the Senior Foreign Service; for some reason they never lost out on this.

Who are the SFS? They're the Foreign Service equivalent to the Civil Service's Senior Executive Service (SES); in other words, State's flag officers (i.e., the equivalent of generals and admirals). It is from this group that principal officers (when they are not political appointees) such as ambassadors and consuls general are chosen.

"all you FSOs out there, are you ready for this? Here's what I think: This is all your fault.

Seriously. Your. Fault.

And here's why.

Whenever Mr. or Ms. Important Politician decides to come to post, you all leap to help out. I've seen this happen at every single post where I've lived. You get a cable that Congressperson So-And-So is coming next week. It's probably a national holiday. Or a weekend. But they're coming. They're flying in business class, and when they arrive, you scramble to meet them. With a motorcade. You take them to meetings with other important people at your post. You sit at their fancy dinners at the Foreign Minister's palace so you can take notes. After you drop them off for the night at their fancy hotels downtown, you slog back to the Embassy to write your cables before making the long trek back to your home in the suburbs somewhere. You kiss your sleeping kids, argue with your spouse about why you couldn't come with her to her doctor's appointment (she doesn't speak the language well, but you do). Then you go to bed.

You wake up before dawn so you can get back to the Embassy and pull cables for the congressperson, who needs to be up on the news as she breakfasts in her hotel. And then you set off for another day in motorcades, running from meetings to lunches to parties to concerts, ignoring the calls from your kids' school, because you know your spouse has that covered and you don't even have time to eat.

While you're doing this, someone else at the Embassy is taking the congressperson's spouse shopping for pearls, and then maybe to a fancy lunch at a local hotspot. It could be the CLO; it could be your wife. But someone is out sightseeing with the congressperson's hangers-on. Maybe a quick visit to the Great Wall, or Petra, or the pyramids. This could be a weekday, or it could be a weekend. Either way, whoever is taking these folks out has cobbled together extra childcare and cancelled that dentist appointment in order to be available.

The visit is over, and the motorcade races to the airport, where Important Person waits in the VIP lounge. Even after Important Person takes that business class ticket and boards the plane, you still sit, and wait. You wait until wheels-up, because that's what you do."

Because it just wouldn't do for there to be a mechanical problem and the plane towed back to the gate and unloaded and an entire congressional delegation stranded at the airport with no local cellphone anymore. Actually describing this gave me a chill, and not in a good, Chris Matthews sort of, way.

I've often maintained that we do ourselves a serious disservice by building and maintaining this sort of artificial bubble for our VIP visitors such as congressmen and STAFDELs. It only creates an unrealistic appreciation on their part for our roles, conditions, and capabilities abroad.

Donna gets this.

"Meanwhile, Important Politician stretches out in his business class seat and listens to his wife talk about the pearls! And the silk scarves! And the amazing food! And IP thinks back to that Foreign Service Officer he just met. And he thinks: what a great life that guy has! He goes to parties at the President's mansion. He drinks fancy wine. He drives around in air conditioned motorcades, with people saluting him as he walks into government buildings. He goes hiking - in the middle of a work day, even! - on the Great Wall. What a cushy life he leads, thinks Important Politician.

So you see, all you Foreign Service Officers out there, it's your fault all of these congresspeople think you deserve a pay cut. They have no idea what work you put into that recent visit. They don't know what you just gave up in order to make sure their visit was a success. They don't understand that your life isn't all cocktail parties interspersed with awesome trips to exotic locations. They don't know that you live in a place where your every move is recorded. Or maybe you live in a place where the locals want you dead. Or you live in a place where your baby has nightmares from the malaria medication. Or your spouse isn't allowed to work because the host government forbids it. Or maybe you're black, and the locals don't like black people. Or maybe you're gay, and that's a punishable offense in your host country. Or you're a woman, so you have to cover up when you walk outside. Or the signs are all in Arabic, so every time you leave the house, you're lost, and you can't ask for directions. Or maybe you went permanently deaf in one ear while you were serving in a country without proper medical care. Important Politician didn't see any of this from the window of the Prime Minister's residence."

&

"(T)hey don't get it, these Important People. They don't know just how hard you work for them, and for your country, because when they show up at your post for a long weekend in December, you work your asses off and not a one of you ever tells them you need to go to your daughter's Christmas pageant, or you need to help your spouse find wrapping paper, or you need to get your sick kid to the doctor. You don't even point out that you're working weekends for these people. You just do the work you're supposed to do, regardless of the weather, the date, the personal sacrifice.

And so they don't know, even when they should, and they just see an easy way to cut some money from the budget that won't impact their constituents. When they make these financial calculations, they don't even see your faces."

re: "Since you enjoy your job so much, Congress wants you to take a pay cut .... "

Domani Spero at Diplopundit ("Just one obsessive observer, diplomatic watcher, opinionator and noodle newsmaker monitoring the goings on at Foggy Bottom and the worldwide available universe.") has a locality pay-cut round-up.

Money quote(s):

"There is locality pay for all CONUS states. Why Congress is only targeting the 11,500 Foreign Service workforce is not clear. About 70% are not in the Senior Foreign Service and could be affected by this cut when deployed overseas. I mean really, that's about 7,600 federal employees serving overseas in over 260 posts. Mr. Reed's state is home to some 69,000 federal employees (not counting the feds working for CIA, DIA, NSA and the other "A"s who may be assigned in the state of New York). Look - that's 9 times the Foreign Service number. Imagine the savings there?"

"Could it be because you have "foreign" in your job title? Or it it because you work overseas and is not in real America? And by the way, who knows if you even vote when you are so far away!?!

I think of this as a simple fairness issue. Of course, nothing is ever simple when it comes to money, or politics."

"You folks working overseas apparently do not pay the first $80K of your income overseas. Did you know that? Hah! That IRS has been cheating on FS folks again! It collected every tax penny from your salary including self-employed spouse's annual income of less than $700. If you believe everything you hear, that IRS did not have to collect anything from your $56K + $700 income? Really.

Go ahead and believe that crap, and you might end up sharing a jail cell with whatshisname actor and tax evader.

Foreign Service folks are not/not exempt from paying full federal, state, and Medicare/SS tax on salaries just because they live in Burkina Faso or whatever the name of the hellhole they're presently assigned to. They pay their taxes happily and willingly, 'cuz if they don't, they could get written up for atrocious unlawful uncivic unprofessional behavior, then they won't get promoted, then they get kick out, then they're just part of the 9% unemployment stats."

There's a lot of popular/unpopular mythology and misinformation out there about diplomats, embassies, and the Foreign Service. Such as the erroneous belief that we somehow don't pay federal income taxes.

Not only do we pay federal income taxes, but we pay state income taxes as well, despite the fact that, for instance, I may not have actually lived in my home state for the entirety of the first ten years of my Foreign Service career.

(You're welcome, Old Dominion!)

"(D)espite prevailing belief to the contrary, Uncle Sam's employees overseas are not exempt from paying taxes (unless they're civies at Gitmo). The foreign earned income does not include amounts paid by the United States or an agency thereof to an employee of the United States or an agency thereof. Congress wrote that up. It's the law of the land. And we know that US diplomatic missions are part of that land, even if they are located all over the map, right?

You also -- supposedly ride around town in a $50,000 Cadillac with diplomatic license plates on the bumper like -- let me get this right -- "like you are better than the very citizens you are supposed to be serving." Ouch! Such sparkling prejudice. Really, a Cadillac? That must be the low level Qatari diplomat riding around in his regular car in DC streets. Have not seen any Cadillac at US overseas posts, not saying there's none, just haven't see any from the embassy compounds I've been to. Saw lots of armored Chevy where you can't roll down the windows. In case you think its armored for decoration, I can assure you it's not. It is armored from front to back and have bullet resistant glass because driving/riding around in a USG vehicle overseas is like driving around with a target mark on your back. What? Um, sorry, not target, they're called cross-hairs now. And in case you think this is vehicle security gone mad, it's not that either. See, the US ambassador to Lome got carjacked recently. And the ICE agents in Mexico who were recently killed/wounded in Monterrey were also using an armored SUV. If not for armored vehicles, not Cadillacs, mind you --- there would be many, many more names up on that memorial plaque on the wall."

I wonder sometimes if people mistakenly think that the cars being driven around D.C. and New York City with diplomatic plates issued by the State Department belong to U.S. diplomats.

Sorry to disappoint, but those are foreign diplomats assigned by their own foreign countries to foreign embassies, foreign missions, and foreign consulates located in the U.S.

So, if you got cut off in traffic by one, or saw one parked illegally, or were otherwise annoyed by one, be untroubled by the notion that it was a U.S. foreign service officer at the wheel.

"We have unarmed diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also in Pakistan where they hate/hate the USA terribly and now think all diplomats are spies. And you don't ever get a tax break for service in those posts."

Military members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan (i.e., combat zones) get a federal tax vacation for the time they are in theatre. U.S. foreign service officers, even those "embedded" with military units in those countries, do not.

This is not a complaint; it's simply an observation as I note the contrast in benefits with regards to different career fields. It simply is. Comparing the military and diplomatic careers, and their respective benefits packages, is like unto the proverbial apples and oranges. They're all fruit, of course, but there are many differences.

Also, as someone who deployed to Iraq as an Army NCO, I "enjoyed" my 12-month federal tax holiday and don't begrudge that the benefit continues to date. The pay systems are quite different, which is why the more useful comparison is with other federal employees, such as the civil service.

"(I)t's not a complete line up of this United States of America unless you have some really wacky ideas thrown in like this one:

"Close the State Department. Hire mercenaries."

Oh! What a gem, dat! I bet the writer would not suggest that if he/she were ever evacuated out of Abidjan, Tunis, Cairo, Tripoli, etc. etc. But just in case Congress takes in that suggestion (because, hey, why not, huh?) -- close the State Department and Uncle Sam somehow hires 'em mercenaries -- here is my simple advice if you're an American in search of an adventure: Do not/do not go to Yemen. What's neat on paper is not always neat in real life. Mercenaries will not arrange an evacuation to bring you back home, they will not notify your next of kin of your welfare or whereabouts, they will not have spouses to cook meals and help check on you in jails or hospitals. And this one is really important -- they will not search morgues to ID your body and ship it home."

The really awful part of consular work are what are non-euphemistically known as "death cases." They are, as anyone with a shred of an imagination might suspect, a bit wearing on those who perform them.

They're also something that good consular officers recognize as being a privilege. It is our honor to be the person who helps take care of those unpleasant chores that an American citizen is simply, to be blunt, too dead to take care of for him- or herself.

Recently, I noted that it was exactly one year since a certain fatal plane crash that involved Americans in my consular district. Out of respect for the families of the deceased I'll omit any unpleasant details, but I will note that was a week when my spouse really helped me deal with the emotional aftermath.

But I wouldn't have ducked the duty, not for anything, because it was my job to be there for my deceased fellow citizens, when no one else could be.

An honor and a privilege and if you ever have a frank exchange of views with my more experienced consular colleagues, you'll quickly notice something: they'll fight for the opportunity to take on a tough job like an evacuation or a disaster. Because they know they've trained for it and they've got the bug that makes them want to help, that makes them run towards events others are running from, like firemen do at fires and like soldiers do when duty calls.

(So, getting back to the original topic, it absolutely dumbfounds me whenever I consider the bass-ackwards business model that financially disincentivizes FSOs from taking overseas assignments. Does. Not. Compute.)