screw-em...
Posted on 04/26/2011 5:15:07 AM PDT by abb
When an arbitrator ruled this month that Detroit could reduce the pensions being earned by its police sergeants and lieutenants, it put the struggling city at the forefront of a growing national debate over whether the pensions of current public workers can or should be reduced.
Conventional wisdom and the laws and constitutions of many states have long held that the pensions being earned by current government workers are untouchable. But as the fiscal crisis has lingered, officials in strapped states from California to Illinois have begun to take a second look, to see whether there might be loopholes allowing them to cut the pension benefits of current employees. Now the move in Detroit — made possible, lawyers said, because Michigan’s constitutional protections are weaker — could spur other places to try to follow suit.
“These things do tend to be herd-oriented,” said Sylvester J. Schieber, an economist and consultant who studies pensions.
The mayors of some hard-hit cities have said that the high costs of pensions have forced them to lay off workers: Oakland, Calif., laid off one-tenth of its police force last year after failing to win concessions on pension costs.
Elsewhere there is pension envy: some private sector workers, who have learned the hard way that their companies can freeze or reduce their pensions, resent that the pensions of public workers enjoy stronger legal protections. But government workers, many of whom were recruited with the promise of good benefits and pensions, say that it would be unfair — and in many cases, very likely illegal — to change the rules in the middle of the game.
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(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
For doing that, he was crucified by Union leadership, local socialist/communists in Dane County WI, the msm, and the stain's regime in WDC.
But he remains....
And now...other states are waking up and realizing that all along, our WI Governor was - and is - right!
screw-em...
401k, I’d rather control my own future than have some beauracrat do it. My company contributes dollar for dollar up to six percent of my salary. Which is not bad IMO...
Yea that whole “we were promised” crap.
Hey public unions, we fund you.
Your president crippled our economy.
Lots of us are out of work and are not paying into the fund that pays you.
Those left standing are not going to put up with higher taxes to maintain your standard of living while we have to do with less and less.
deal with it.
Is not every contract a promise?
How many existing contracts affect your life, where you will easily and without complaint, accept changing the terms? Your mortgage or lease? Your insurance? Sorry not gonna honor the terms, too expensive... evidently you do not have an employer-paid or subsidized retirement plan that was part of the compensation you contracted for when you took the job. That was your choice, others chose differently
Seems to me mass layoffs of present and hiring freeze on future govt positions, and privatization, is where cities need to head. And election of responsible leaders who will dig out of this mess and not perpetuate it ....what a pipedream that is.
In the case of my mortgage, insurance, etc., yes I signed a contract and to date, I’ve honored them all.
I can’t recall ever signing such a document with an army of government deadheads saying that I was obligated to furnish them money for limitless medical care and a pension until death.
I guess everything is "off limits" except the salaries of ordinary people who do productive work for a living.
nice try but
“your” elected officials signed such contracts
hence, so did “you”
If you go down to City Hall or State capital, you can probably get a copy of the contracts “you” signed via the powers “you” vested in your elected officials
changing the past is slippery dangerous ground in contract law. changng the future is where the fix needs to lie. The watershed struggle now, as per Gov Walker, is about changing the future.
Butbutbutbutbut... We were PROMISED!!!
I have a document in my hands that promises me that Congress would make no law restricting my Free Speech, interfere in my Religion, make liens against my Liberty, regulate my Firearms, dictate to me my allowed levels of Happiness, and threaten my life with rogue SWAT teams and medical death panels. Yet for some odd reason, that "contract" is easily and trivially voided.
Screw the "social contract" how about that "legal contract"?
Imagine if GE, Motorola or some other government contractor was granted a life-long multi-billion dollar contract - and by life-long we are talking for the life of the corporation. The contract states that the vendor will supply mind-boggling quantities of useless paperwork, will interfere and obstruct commerce, if it creates anything, it will be inferior, dangerous and toxic, and will harass, delay and intimidate the Producers for two scores of years, and then will receive 80% of the inflation adjusted annual contract value until the corporation and all of its subsidiaries dissolve.
How well do you think that would go over on the public?
In the real world, government contracts are measured in months and are constantly subject to being truncated or killed. Yet businesses line-up around the block to get in on these risky and short-lived arrangements. I propose we do the same, treat current employees as contractors and put them on six, twelve or eighteen month contracts without guaranteed renewals. If its good enough for every other government contractor on the planet, its good enough for these grifters.
“We” taxpayers too once had a contract. “They” once said income taxes would never be levied but upon the “wealthy.”
“They” once said social security would never be taxed.
All this was in the form of a “contract,” also known as “law.” But “law” is changed every day in every government entity across the land.
GM and Chrysler bond holders had a contract that their loans to the company would not be subordinated to other debt. What happened to that contract? Dispensed with the stroke of a pen.
You better hope and pray that we taxpayers don’t abrogate the one contract from which the deadhead class will never recover: the voluntary payment of taxes.
Suppose the taxpayers all went on strike instead of the government workers? Then what?
It’s called “Going Galt” and we can each make a choice, at least to a degree
Some of us already are headed that way
1. Just as unions want stable jobs, and COLAs when the cost of living goes up, taxpayers expect fairly stable public-goods costs. Taxpayers, too, have a “Contract” — an implicit “Social Contract” with the government at the State and Federal levels, not to be gouged, and to be provided affordable public services at reasonable prices (taxes) over time, so that they can save, plan their futures, fund their kids education and bank some retirement savings.
In California, Gov spending has grown FASTER than inflation plus population growth.
No one in the Government or the SEIU is honoring any sort of “Contract” with the Taxpayer, to guarantee affordable and stable (non-spiked) Govt services & civil servant salaries.
2) No “Contract” was signed by future generations, to pay for trillions in debt and bailouts to public and private unions pensions.
Little kids in grade school today can’t VOTE, and never ‘agreed’ to pay for the unfunded liabilities (”Vaca” years) of Teacher union retirees, UAW retirees, Federal retirees, etc.
This relation is TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION, VOTE or CONSENT. It is raw theft, without concern for consent or formation of a prior “contract.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So please, unions, spare us the violins about ‘honoring’ agreed-to contracts.
Excellent points, Silverleaf. Agree completely.
I get one of those pensions. We take a significant pay cut in order to get it and it is pretty sweet. Still, it was a bad deal for the state even though I don’t get a Cadillac health plan or anything like that unless you call Medicare “Cadillac”. Paying me 75% of my salary after I retire until I drink myself to death is a pretty good deal for me. Plus I plan to keep working after I retire.
When the contract did not follow the Prudent Man Rule?
When the retirement fund approaches zero value do you keep paying the most senior employee or pensioner?
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
If SS and Medicare are "on the table", then EVERYTHING is on the table: public employee pensions, government guarantees for private sector pension funds, ALL of it.
And welfare needs to go, before SS is touched.
FUTURE social security programs benefit and MEDICARE are “on the table”
Pretty much anyone over 50 now stays the same
I think the conservatives are talking about raising the retirement age by 3 years and going to a voucher program to replace MEDICARE.... phased in over the next 25 YEARS
are you an AARP member or just not doing your research on these serious proposals?
Don't get all juiced up over dhimmi propaganda. Leave that to the 35% of mentally ill unrecoverable liberals
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