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Washington, D.C.—For the second time in less than a year, the administration is borrowing from the savings of federal employees and retirees to keep from defaulting on the nation’s debt. The leader of the nation’s largest independent union of federal workers urged Congress to raise the debt ceiling to prevent this recurring use of employee and retiree savings.

“However the administration characterizes it,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), “this money belongs to federal employees and retirees, and it’s not the administration’s to use to cover the effects of bad economic policies.”

In a letter to congressional leaders yesterday, Treasury Secretary John Snow said that since the government is bumping up against the national debt ceiling of $6.4 trillion, it would effective today suspend investments in the Government Securities Investment Fund of the Federal Employees Retirement System—the Thrift Savings Plan. The particular investment affected is known as the “G-Fund.”

“It doesn’t matter that federal law requires that G-Fund beneficiaries be made whole by the return to the fund of both principal and interest,” President Kelley said. “Congress needs to get its economic act together so that it doesn’t have to play financial games like this with other people’s money.”

The NTEU leader repeated her assertion that maneuvers of this kind are “a serious setback” in efforts by federal agencies to recruit and retain the high quality employees they need to accomplish their missions.

“The negative message sent by this kind of action is not only the wrong message,” she said, “it is a message that is not lost either by today’s federal employees or by those considering government employment. It is a foolish, self-defeating step.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 29 agencies and departments.