Posted on 02/27/2010 5:30:40 AM PST by bestintxas
All this week CNN has been taking a look at "Broken Government" and in some cases the cable channel deviated from the mainstream media norm by providing a critical view of government.
That was the case on Feb. 23 when Wolf Blitzer and Lisa Sylvester scrutinized lavish pension-plan and retirement-packages for government officials during "The Situation Room."
"Many Americans will spend half a lifetime or more working for the same company only to find little or no safety-net when that job ends," Blitzer said to begin the report. "Others, especially those on Capitol Hill don't have that problem."
"This is certainly nice work if you can get it," reporter Lisa Sylvester noted, alluding to the troubling disparity. "Lawmakers on Capitol Hill get automatic pay-raises and they never have to worry about their retirement, but that's not the case for many middle-class Americans."
How to get by after retirement is a question that weighs on many citizens. CNN found a former auto parts worker who had his pension cut 30 percent by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation after his company Delphi went bankrupt and his pension was taken over by the government.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The more lucrative we make govt work, the more our best and brightest will not become part of the private sector and opt for govt employment instead. Wrong direction.
Government pensions need to come to an end. The math just shows they are unsustainable. Why not have government employees invest their earnings in a 401k or other conventional retirement funding vehicles instead?
All hail The State! Government Uber Alles!
(The peasants? Let them eat cake if they have no bread.)
....Wanna bet the DC solution is to reach out and grab (nationalize) the existing privately controlled 401Ks to subsidize the Federal government’s train wreck?
I am surprised this has not happened yet. Government loves to confiscate shiny pots of money wherever they can be found.
I’d like to see them try. They’ll have millions of soon-to-retire boomers at their doorstep with pitchforks. These are private investments to which the government has no rights.
This demonstrates how far we have come from *citizen representation*.
It is long past time for TERM LIMITS. If members of Congress had not voted to steal all the pensions and benefits from the taxpayers...they would not run for life-time, permanent *elective* office.
There are no penalties for mismanaging the Federal Budget - no lay-offs, reduced pay or other sacrifices within the Congress or bureaucracies. They are out of reach and out of touch.
Criminals!
” They’ll have millions of soon-to-retire boomers at their doorstep with pitchforks.”
...why limit ourselves to pitchforks?....after last fall’s national ammo buying spree; it’ll be lock and load time baby!
...never mess with a man’s woman
...never mess with a man’s money
That’s the idea of the “annuities” they’re floating.
Their pensions should be cancelled outright. In the name of fairness, they should be given something equivalent to, say, 10% of the salaries that they made over the life of their government employment - plus, say, 3% of that, which is what your average corporate employer gives - and then let them invest in the same choices as the average 401(k) program: money market, treasuries, index fund, other managed funds, etc. After that, it’s all on them, and we the taxpayers have no further obligation to them. Maybe they’d be more careful about their ridiculous meddling in the economy if they had to suffer like the rest of us.
This government and its confiscations are sounding a lot like Hugo Chavez these days.
What about military retirees?
You are absolutely correct. The government workers should have a 401K with 3% match. PERIOD. You get out of it what you put into it.
Cancel all congresscritters pensions outright. They have taken a part-time job and turned into a eternal piggy bank. Give them a 10% 401K. Anything over that is theft.
The federal employee pension system was reformed several years ago around a three component program consisting of a greatly reduced pension, social security and a 401K-like benefit. While still a good system, it is not near as expensive as the former system that many members of Congress are presently under which is the old Civil Service Retirement System, a defined bnefit plan based on a percentage of high three salary x years of service. If they also get full social security, they are also receiving a benefit not permitted the normal old system retiree whose social security is offset by their federal pension. Perhaps excessive for federal elected officials, not so much for the regular federal retiree.
Senile security riots!
I am set to get a Senile Security check in a year. If I do I will frame it and hang it on the wall. It is only about 1k what a joke.
I suspect, local, state and Federal employees are going to get to experience themselves, the consequences of their policies that have already trashed the private sector ...from conception to old age.
Exactly right. That's why we must fight to keep their filthy, thieving hands off of our private retirement funds.
“What about military retirees?”
I would always except the military.
They are not “civil servants” and serve a completely different purpose than the bureacracy that controls us.
They cannot unionize either.
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