Free Republic

A year after filing for bankruptcy, Detroit is building momentum to get out, especially after workers and retirees voted in favor of major pension changes just a few weeks before a judge holds a crucial trial that could end the largest public filing in U.S. history. Pension cuts were approved in a landslide, according to results filed shortly before midnight Monday. The tally from 60 days of voting gives the city a boost as Judge Steven Rhodes determines whether Detroit’s overall strategy to eliminate or reduce $18 billion in long-term debt is fair and feasible to all creditors. Trial starts...

The bulk of the projected savings in the pension-reform deal announced by Gov. Jerry Brown won’t be felt for decades because most of the proposed changes will affect employees who have yet to be hired. While Brown touted his deal as a way to shore up California’s pension funds, it also illustrates the difficulty in addressing runaway pension costs. That’s because retirement benefits for current government employees are protected by decades of court decisions. Jeff Lewis, an Oakland-based attorney who represents public workers, said Wednesday that it’s nearly impossible to change their retirement benefits because courts have generally viewed them...

Chris Christie gets it -- and he didn't need the Tea Party to inspire him. Christie has been shaking up New Jersey since Day One, and now he's done it again -- proposing an unprecedented tightening of pension and health-care benefits for public employees, in order to shore up a system that's teetering at the edge of bankruptcy. He wants to raise the normal retirement age for teachers and most state and municipal workers to 65, requiring 30 years service for early retirement instead of 25. Police would have to work 30 years for full retirement, but could retire early...