[tanknetter]

Explain to me EXACTLY how putting money away for you retirement is considered a ‘pay cut”. It is nothing more than me putting away part of my income for a future time, all the while it should be earning interest. “Budget cuts”, “pay cuts”, “reduced spending” are all play on words.

The issue is that it's compulsory. I can easily imagine the howls of outrage around here if part of the deal was to raise EVERYONE'S Social Security "contribution" by a percent or two. People would be screaming bloody murder about how it drops their net income, yelling about all the negative economic impacts of taking the ability to decide where to spend that money out of the hands of individuals and putting it into the hands of nameless/faceless bureaucrats.

Conservatives don't like being told what to do with the money they themselves earn. We need to be consistent and then apply that same standard to others as well.

[Zenjitsuman]

We the tax payers are footing Cadillac pensions for civil servants with far higher payout than in the private sector.

Additionally, they can retire earlier than most not working for the government, and go get another job and pension.

With all this red deficit ink when will we see pensions cut down to what we can afford instead of stealing from our kids to pay for this unfair public pension system benefits for the few.

[arderkrag]

But but but, don't you see? These are the bad guys and therefore we have to be giddy that they are being told what to do! We can only be outraged when it's them doing it to us! YEEEAAAHHH!

/sarc, obviously.

[drbuzzard]

It is compulsory in about the sense that breathing is. The government is broke. It is running serial deficits. Unless you expect them to simply print money to pay for those pensions(which due to inflation would make the pensions worthless), it has to come from somewhere, and it doesn’t particularly bother me if it happens to be from the people who directly benefit from the pensions.

Alternatively taxpayers can be put on the hook for this, and the general consensus among the taxpayers here is that they are on enough hooks already.

Though actually compulsory is one of the more hyperbolic claims. Nobody has those federal employees chained to a desk, slaving away at out behest. They are perfectly free to go find a job in the private sector where they could generate wealth rather than consume it.

[Alberta's Child]

That point you raise is disingenuous (not necessarily deliberately so, on your part).

It's only compulsory because this is a defined-benefit pension fund, not a self-directed IRA or 401(k) plan. If your employer is responsible for managing your pension, then the employer has a lot of control over what you contribute.

Social Security "contributions" are a tax. A pension contribution is not.

[pas]

not even close to the same. It is more like if your company changed your benefit package. Most companies went away from this model long ago.