Posted on 02/26/2012 10:11:25 AM PST by SmithL
The average California household's share of the debt for underfunded state and local government employee pensions comes to about $30,500.
Stanford University studies released last week and in December for the first time aggregate public pension shortfalls statewide. Using moderate assumptions about future investment returns, the unfunded liability is about $379 billion.
Hard-core pension reformers will maintain that the number is much more. Defenders of the status quo will insist it's significantly less. Before sorting out that dispute, let's understand what the numbers mean.
Each year public employees work, they increase their future pensions. So, as they work, they and their employers jointly should set aside enough money to cover the additional benefits.
To calculate the contributions, actuaries and pension boards make assumptions about future investment returns and pension costs. Unfortunately, they've been wrong.
They have overestimated investment earnings, underestimated pension costs and retroactively added benefits without proper funding. As a result, pension systems across California have huge unfunded liabilities.
Keep in mind that the shortfall is for pension benefits employees already earned. Like salary and health care benefits, it's a cost that should be paid when labor is performed.
Instead, the shortfall has been converted into debt to be paid off over time, up to 30 years. Government agencies make those payments, diverting money that would otherwise go for government services. So we're depriving current and future generations to pay off past labor costs.
How much is the debt? It depends on how much pension systems project they can earn on investments. The greater the assumed rate of return, the less money pension systems need now and, hence, the smaller the shortfall. The converse is also true.
Most California public pension systems anticipate they can earn about 7.75 percent annually. Every year they fall short of that target ...
(Excerpt) Read more at contracostatimes.com ...
Could anyone sue the State and force the State to fund the schemes by this amount per household right away? That would lead to an interesting set of possibilities.
Give everyone in California a bottle of wine and a pound of grass.
Is there something that makes Californians responsible for that debt if they become ex-Californians?
I say, when a California state worker retires, he should be able to pick any house he would like to live in, to be taken via eminent domain, by the state, for him to retire in.
And do the same for any car of his choosing.
There are so many state workers now, as a percentage of the population, they are a key voting block for the big government liberals. And they control every part of the government now. And therefore should be generously rewarded for their electoral prowess.
In fact we should set up a new class system, where government workers are the upper class royalty and everybody else are serfs to do their bidding.
That's been in place for years
My parents solved this problem when they retired. They packed up and left California for good.
Well if I decide to leave the state then my share of this non-sense falls to 0.
The 30K is just the unfunded part. In reality the typical California Government employee is a retirement millionaire.
It’s not moral or sustainable. The typical private sector employee is planning to work until they drop, while public employee usually retire in their early 50’s.
Again where is the Republican party on this issue. Silent mostly.
You can't leave until you pay YOUR tax bill.
Let's see ....it can be enforced by an agreement between states not to issue licenses, utility permits and etc as long as you have a tax lien against you from another state.
THE UNION PENSIONS WILL BE PAID!!
gee, couple that $30K with the $40+ K each of us owes to cover the federal debt and it makes one see how seriously effed we are at the hands of the establishment
Such an idea already has been discussed in the legislature; I kid you not. My guess is that they decided the Feds would kill it, but hey, it just shows their lack of imagination. The usual Democrat way would be to pass it, pump up the budget on the expected receipts, and keep spending until they get to complain about Federal intervention when their wet dream slops.
Leaders with the Scotts Valley Unified School District will place a three-year, $48 per-parcel tax measure before voters in June, going with the figure most likely to receive the required two-thirds voter approval.
Board members appeared deflated at Tuesday's Board of Trustees meeting after hearing the results of a recent poll, conducted among 250 likely and unlikely voters. The poll had a margin of error of 6 percent.
Though nearly 70 percent of those polled agreed additional funds were needed, fewer than half knew much, if anything, about the proposal that board members have been discussing over the last four months, said Gene Bregman, whose firm conducted the poll.
But "with a good campaign, well run, lots of parent volunteers, people who know what they're doing, I think we can get something passed here," he said. "The bad news is I think you need to keep the tax rate under $50."
If passed, the tax would raise about $300,000 each year, far less than the district says it needs, especially if measures expected to come before voters in the fall do not pass.
In November, Gov. Jerry Brown intends to ask voters to approve a half-cent sales tax increase and to raise taxes on the wealthy to prevent further cuts to education.
At that time they then owe 40,000 in federal debt per person, which goes up nearly 4 billion per day.
You can run, but ya can't hide and you'll still be in debt when ya get there.
Stupid liberal thinking! One of my brother-in-laws hit me up for a $100G loan to tide him over, I refused. "How'd you get into such a mess, spending your home equity like a piggy bank?". He said "I figured the economy would get better and there'd be no more problems!". Wishful thinking, he's now in bankruptcy. He spent future money he didn't have, hoping money would magically fall out of the sky. Every liberal is dumb as rocks.
So why don’t your brother in law do like the banks, fatcorps and Wall Street did, and just demand and receive bailouts?
Free market?
lol...
Bow to your masters: local government employees, who receive federal funding and regulate against any production or building by you. Even the many who have nothing to do (re. decades long residential real estate bust) are the glorified, bipartisan “taxpayers” (fat revenues/debt in, little turds of revenues out).
Bill requires all private payrolls payable to state agency
State Agency To Decide How Much Of Your Pay You Get
"Only fair way to handle our need for cash," say Democrats
Bill would require elderly to exchange single-family homes for apartments
Elderly Living Alone Not Allowed To Own Single-Family Homes
"Las familias necesitan los hogares," say Democrats returning from Mexico City
You are correct that there really is no legal way for a Stete to file Bankruptcy. However, We the People do have the Absolute Right through the initiative process to GRANT TO OURSELVES Complete Sovereign Immunity from all Civil Liability for all Public Contracts, Agreements, and Debt that can be demonstrated to require future revenue enhancements.
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