The budget bill before Congress includes some key reforms of the federal workforce. New hires will choose between retaining rigid civil service protections with higher pension contributions (9.4% of pay) or opting for at-will employment with lower contributions (4.4%) of pay. Naturally, government worker unions are in open revolt against such changes.

But Congress should remember just how good government workers have it now. The latest data show government workers receive substantially more than their private sector counterparts and are therefore much more expensive to employ. The average hourly cost for wages or salary is 23.6% higher for government workers, $39.42 per hour compared to $31.89 per hour. The larger disparity is from the gratuitously large benefits paid to government workers, costing an average of $24.58 per hour compared to $13.49 per hour in the private sector. That’s a whopping 82.2 percent more!

This does not even include the near-lifetime tenure of federal employees – a sweetheart deal Trump wants to bring to an end.