Occam's Razor

The government may be shutting down on Tuesday, but this near retiree is still not too panicked. Shutdowns don’t last forever, although this latest group of Tea Party Republicans doesn’t seem very amenable to reason, so it could last weeks or longer. I’m not too panicked because not only is retirement on the horizon, my retirement now has a date, sort of: May 2015.

That’s what I told my management chain recently. “Eighty percent certainty.” Watching our dysfunctional Congress at work makes me want to speed that up to an immediate retirement, technically possible but not entirely advisable. The message from Republicans in Congress to us toiling in the federal civil service is kind of hard not to hear: we hate you. There are the constant threats of shutdowns; and this one looks like it is actually going to happen. To make sure you get the message that you are loathed, Republicans don’t seem inclined to compensate us for shutdowns they caused.

Then there are all the other signs, like the lack of anything like a cost of living raise these last four years. For four years inflation has eroded the value of my salary without even a penny in cost of living increases. And of course, there were furloughs. My agency was fortunate enough to escape them this year, but not without much anxiety. “Retire if you can and don’t mind us if we kick you in the pants on your way out the door. We don’t give a shit about all your hard work during your career. Just get the hell out. If we make your life miserable enough, maybe you will just quit and do the taxpayers a favor.”

Message received. But retirement, if you can even afford to retire, is not something to do on impulse. You have to have some confidence that you can actually afford to retire. There are so many factors to consider. In our case, there’s the remaining debt on our house, which ideally should not be carried into retirement. There is also the pension amount. The longer you wait, the higher the pension. Since my pension is based on my highest annual salaries, the lack of a cost of living raise for four years has effectively cut my pension. Thanks, Republicans!

Then there is the larger question of what the heck I am going to do in retirement. The research shows not doing anything cuts your mortality significantly. It also increases your risk of Alzheimer’s. Apparently, the brain is something like a muscle. If you don’t challenge it by giving it obstacles, it tends to atrophy. Anyhow, there are lots of puzzle pieces to consider. There is also our daughter, now age 24, who presumably should move out and be able to support herself independently before we retire. But I must say that being retired is looking quite appealing, if for no other reason that I don’t have to feel like a piñata anymore. Instead of Congress giving me the finger, I can give them one back.

My boss’s retirement in June had the effect of making me more than a little jealous. At least she is out of the mess. I am still in it. My glide slope to retirement though seems a little sad. My employer, the U.S. Geological Survey, is such a terrific employer. It’s doing everything it can possibly do to maintain morale and let employees know their work matters. But it can’t keep us from being furloughed except for the handful whose work is deemed “excepted” from furlough. That depends on a Congress that actually cares about the laws on the books and values its mission, rather than the anarchistic boobs we have instead.

So May 2015 is about right. My service computation date cranks into another year, which increases the pension to a marginally more satisfying amount. And I still have twenty months to keep putting income into retirement accounts. I do care enough about my job and the people who work for and with me to make my transition out as reasonably painless as possible for those who will pick up my slack. I’d like to have most of my projects complete and to do whatever mentoring I can to those who might assume my position. Twenty more months should allow all this to happen.

I am hopeful that Democrats will regain the House in the 2014 elections and that sanity will return to Congress then. It would be nice to retire with a government that again values rather than scorns its employees. It will be an uphill fight with House districts so crazily gerrymandered, but it is potentially doable. A shutdown that lasts for more than a week might be the animus that tells voters it’s time to escort these bulls out of our national china shop.

I can thank Republicans for one thing: giving me the animus to call John, our financial adviser, and run through the scenario where I would retire earlier and, if necessary, take the rest of my life off. What would our retirement parachute look like? We ran through all sorts of scenarios based on pension estimates, investment income, savings and probable expenses. I asked him to project all sorts of unlikely scenarios, including a cut in my pension and mediocre stock market returns on our portfolio over the thirty or so more years I hope to be alive. It all looks doable if I stay on the plan. It is made better by relocating to a less expensive area of the country, which is part of our animus at looking at retirement areas. Our financial adviser, like most, likes to use Monte Carlo simulations to make portfolio projections. It is sort of like throwing random die on a table over thirty years, and using those numbers to project investment returns. Even in the most unlikely scenarios, we should do fine. We can maintain our standard of living without needing to earn a dime after retirement.

Retirement, if you can do it, can be more of a door opening than one shutting behind you. I will be glad to put the federal rat race behind me. I don’t know what my future will look like beyond inevitable aging and death. But I do know I am up to the challenge.

Twenty months to go.