Govt employees = the New Slavers.
Dump the gov pensions. Let them eat cake on social security with the rest of us.
That is approximately $40,000 per household JUST FOR THE DEFICIT funding. Does not include current funding, other taxes, federal income taxes, etc., etc.
The liability will spread to even fewer taxpayers if birth rates remain low and/or people start leaving the state.
It’s not like it’s Oregon’s leaders’ money so spend, spend, spend.
Doom and gloomers are laughed at, but, honestly, I think where they are wrong is in the timing. The world’s economy is like a car careening down a hill without brakes, ever increasing in speed. “Doom and Gloomers” say, “That next corner, we’re goin’ off the cliff!” But the car makes it. Then the next one and maybe the next.
But we all know it’s not going to end well. It just depends on when the speed is high enough and the corner tight enough.
The speed is getting crazy though, and the corners tigher, and the cliff taller. I don’t know when it’s gonna happen, but when it does, it will be fast and it will be devastating. And it will STILL catch everyone off guard.
Wherever the Democrat (in name only) party has gained control over all branches of government steady stream revenue sources intended for certain purposes, such as taxes for maintaining roads and highways, those funds will get diverted and directed towards employee salary and pension benefits. How are the roads in this state ?
Failed policy. Put liberal Democrats in charge and keep kicking the financial can down the road until the road ends. Hell, sounds just like Illinois strategy.
Here’s how it worked in Cal.
When unions came in signed into law at midnight before Jerry Brown left office the first time, unions that represented Corrections said to Brown and the legislators after they went into power. We want the same pay as the CHP (at the time, the elite in cal). After they started building prisons, the correctional officers union was the biggest in the state and their lobbyists could go into legislator’s offices and write bills onto the state system and that legislator would sponsor it. I saw that happen personally.
So corrections wanted parity with CHP and they got it and they had 25,000 employees paying $42 a mont fees.
So the COs got pay parity with the five largest law enforcement agencies, CHP, LAPD, LASO and so forth. They were already in the same retirement program. 2.5% at age 55 times the years of work times highest year’s salary.
Then Gay-give me 100,000, and you can come into my office for coffee-Davis gave all state peace officers 3.0 at age 50 because they dummied up the projected value of the retirement fund POFF for cops and fire fighters. So LA gives 3.0 to their people and the SO needs to give 3.0 to theirs and so forth because it’s a big recruiting issue and every cop and fire fighter in every podunk agency in the state got 3.0.
Then all of a sudden, after Davis, the value of the fund which was based on false projections of future income, went down. Now you see the results of that with the huge projected deficit.
The man who started it all is back in power building trains to nowhere and leaving the door unlocked at the border and mocking Trump while extending his other hand for federal money and signing a budget each year with 20 billion in services t illegals. Has he done anything about the retirement mess. Uh, no. Did he start new people in a more fiscally sound program, uh no. Will he answer questions about why not. Not on your ass, he doesn’t. And people who raise the issue are conservative extremist and those crazyHoward Jarvis fanatics.
unions raise dues to have more bribe money. more bribes get them more bennies, more bennies including higher salaries means they can raise the dues and increase the bribes see how sweet the system is. Union members who get a 200 a month pay raise don’t mind giving another 25 of it to the union whose bribery got them the raise. And we tried to best to stop with the initiative process, but fake adds convinced a majority to vote no on the initiative. So here we are locked in a cycle of bribery and debt.
Solution? No public unions or no unions ca n donate money to a candidate who can vote on their benefits. isn’t that a direct conflict of interest your honor? Oh you say you are a liberal democrat judge. never mind. Business as usual and the next democrat governor will do the same with the super majority in the legislature.
One day it will all implode but don’t ask me to care much anymore. I’m on the payroll (under the old retirement formula) and riding into the sunset.
The Republican post got one thing wrong. The ability to roll sick leave into a retirement ended was eliminated years ago. I knew a lady who had perfecf work attendance. Once Oregon state made that change, she began taking a lot of sick leave.
I am no expert but check this out.
The homes in much of the region in S.CA rent for about $2,600 per month for a $600,000 home. If one multiplies 2600 x 12 months, that comes to $31,200 per year. 10x that is $312,000. This is what the home should actually be selling for...Not 550k++!
I'll quote from those who know.
"Typically, the rents that landlords charge fall between 0.8% and 1.1% of the home’s value. For example, for a home valued at $250,000, a landlord could charge between $2,000 and $2,750 each month. But the problem is, there are no homes for 250k in S. CA! LOL! They average being instead about 500k to 600k. For those homeowners or investors with low equity, they'd have to charge about $5,000++ per month and UP, depending on equity. But the average priced home won't rent for that!
Uh oh.
I'd guess there is trouble on the way. My bet would be like the bloated pension system, look for big adjustments in the not too distant future.
Politically, Oregon is an absolutely despicable state. I’m just fine with their corrupt pension system imploding on itself. May they all end up dead broke.
None of the proposals below are enough, I know, but they’d be a start:
1. Change the defined benefit formula so it excludes all compensation other than actual defined salary, with all other compensation NOT figuring into the pension.
2. Go drastic and impute what pensions already set would have been if those rules were in place. Take back what that calculation imputes as “excess” benefits - permanently.
3. Close the current pension fund - no new hires included in it.
4. Put all new hires in a defined contribution PENSION plan - not a lousy 401K or similar ad hoc plan, but an actual pension plan, but managed on defined contribution terms, not defined benefit.
5. Over time, divide up the existing defined contribution plan into more than one plan, and then put each of them into new PRIVATE not-for-profit entities allowed to take in individuals from anywhere.
6. Then (1) new hires get to pick which private pension plan they want to join, and (2) one-to-one transfers out of one plan and into another are permitted as well - PRIOR TO RETIREMENT.
Altogether these changes take out the politics and political management of government employees’ retirement plans. The only commitment the government has is to the rate of contribution it agrees to make per employee - that’s it. The pension, when they retire is no more than knowing the individual’s pension account balance, getting a mortality factor for remaining life expectancy, using a conservative earnings rate the fund might make over the years. Then, the math determines how many years a certain $$ amount per month can be expected to be funded for the individual’s remaining lifetime, from the INDIVIDUALS’ pension account balance.
When the individual lives longer, the fund experiences a “mortality loss”, and when they die sooner a “mortality gain”. Well managed determination of the mortality rates and the expected earnings rate works to see that, over time, mortality losses and gains balance out instead of putting the fund at risk long term.
It is the most simple and direct method for pension plans and has no complicated defined benefit formulas to be gamed by the individuals or the employer. You work. Your employer pays an agreed % per month/year into the pension plan. You have an account of your own that contributions for you & by you get accumulated, become part of an invested fund, and generate earnings on YOUR contributions. At the end you have an account balance that largely determines how much monthly pension you can get. That’s it.
Oregon ping