Posted on 06/24/2010 8:06:26 AM PDT by SmithL
The nonpartisan Little Hoover Commission meets today to hear testimony about public pensions, aiming to dispassionately analyze the impact of retirement costs on governments and then, if needed, suggest changes.
Heaven knows we need a dose of level-headed analysis, given the wide-open rhetoric that "pension reform" provokes.
Unions see such efforts as a call to arms, "an attack on public employees," union lobbyist Dave Low once told The State Worker.
Last year when it looked like an initiative might make the ballot to cut benefits for future government hires, Low warned it would provoke a "nuclear response" from labor.
Context and moderation don't score political points on either side.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has made rolling back state retirement benefits a top priority and has adroitly linked pensions to just about everything that ails the state.
Welfare? Kids' health care getting whacked? State aid for seniors? All on the chopping block all because ... of ... PENSIONS!!
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
We need to look beyond the Pensions. Look to the Unions. In todays world, the Unions are one of the countries worst enemies.
State and federal pensions are bankrupting the entire country.
I have friends who are cops and firemen in NY area. Its far worse than you can ever imagine how insane these pensions are.
Former SDSer Gerry McEntee I beleieve still runs AFSCME
.
I do not begrudge military, cop and firemen pensions because they work so damn hard and they are all involved in public safety and national security.
The ones I do not like and feel are way too generous are those of teachers, auto workers, government politicians and bureaucrats, etc.
Story needs Union Made poster.
X2....these folks essentially don't work real hard for 20-25 years and then get ridiculous monthly pensions that the general public isn't aware of.
If the governments were to have to pay for the current employees' retirement as they work, then you could make an honest and informed decision about whether they are worth their total pay and benefits.
They are financial time bombs. The average cop in my area makes over 100k a year plus benes and can retire after 20 years. They pad the ot which gets calculated into the pension resulting in many of these guys retiring at 85-100 % salary pension.
Allowing anyone to rtire at 40 - 50 years old on that pension, plus health bens is fiscal suicide.
All of these cuts is evidence of what all these programs were really all about The aid to those these programs were supposed to help is cut, but the overpaid underworked government paycheck collector stays on the dole.
ah, but they're doing such great work in places like...Greece...well, if you think rioting and murdering bank employees is a good thing. It will be sooner rather than later that the US becomes Greece.
We do need to look at unions. I am in a state employee, but I am not in a union. Unionized state employees are making all state employees look bad.
grrr...should have been "I am a state employee."
Everybody please be mature and try not to have too much fun with my cerebral flatulence.
I disagree. The notion that the obligation to compensate for labor should extend far beyond the period that labor is being provided is just plain stupid.
The twisted idea that an employer owes an employee anything other than and honest day's pay for an honest day's work (pensions, health benefits, anything other than a timely check) is the seed of economic distortion and eventual ruination.
Lets call them what they are....
>>>GOVERNMENT PENSIONS<<<<<
At that point, Obama will take over the unions and install his civilian military.
No sale.
Unionized or not, government employees at all levels are choking off the American private sector.
Tens of hundreds of thousands of state, city, county and federal government employees need to be eliminated.
Unionized or otherwise, bloated ever growing government is killing America.
It is deferred payment, get serious. The fact that Employers invest money in a pension fund on behalf of their employees is a good thing. It is the funded unlike, the government robbery plan laughingly called Social Security.
If they follow the same practice as the Government does, they will likely suffer the same failure.
Employers can employ workers and require x number of years to be vested in the pension plan, then find some reason to terminate the employment, leaving all the pension money invested for the employee in the employers hands.
Employers, just like Unions have large pension funds, that they can and do use to enrich themselves.
No. But public employee unions ARE. A BIG Hoover Commission should take that one on.
Pensions don't need "reform" -- they just need the obscene level of benefits whacked back to competitive levels. Pension management also needs to be held accountable for wreckless investment strategies. Hedge fund gambling with public employee and taxpayer dollars is irresponsible, if not criminal. The same goes for some of their international investments and creative land deals.
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