Sorry, this is not good news for either the Republicans or the teachers.
What this action will do is to ensure Bob Casey’s re-election in 2012. Republicans should be demanding that the House return and vote this session, then a challenger would have a shot.
There are 675,000 people affected by this action, the majority (probably 400,000) outside of Philly and Pittsburgh vote conservatively. All of these people have paid 7.5% of their salary over the last decade into their retirement. Over the same amount of time the state and school districts have paid in less than an average of 1% per year and in conjunction with the fall in the stock market, the pension fund is under-funded.
It’s one thing if the stock market tanks... it’s another if the deposits were never made. PA wants to move to a “401K” defined contribution plan - why? The state/districts didn’t match contributions when it was a defined benefit plan. Imagine that your company refused to make matching contributions to your 401K - think you’d be buying their stock?
OK, so we have a new governor that is going to follow Gov. Crist’s lead from NJ and start cutting the “public dole.” In spite of the bipartisan agreement to fix the pension plan (233-14 across the House and Senate)the newly elected (partisan) House and Senate will follow the Governor and royally piss off 400,000 conservative teachers by changing their retirement due to inaction by the state.
Yeah - I can understand the Dems walking away from a bipartisan solution to the mess if they can blame it on the Republicans and get Casey re-elected. Check the numbers again between Toomey and Sestak...
What I don’t understand is that supposed conservatives think that this is good news.
Surely you jest.
Conservativism win every time it’s tried.
Why would we encourage people by going along to get along?
LOL, are you serious? There aren't 400,000 Conservative teachers in the whole freakin' COUNTRY much less in PA.
Cristi has made a sport of bitch slapping the Unions in one of the bluest of blue States and is doing just fine in the polls.
There are about 10 million persons in PA who are over the age of 18 and comprise the voting population. So the rest of us have to see our taxes and debt rise in order to not anger 4% of the population?
We have to fund the retirement of these already overpaid people?
I fund my own retirement - what makes these teachers and other government workers better than me in that I have to fund my own retirement and ALSO fund THEIR retirement? Am I missing something? Was I born into the wrong caste or perhaps I chose a more difficult path than attending college to earn one of the easiest degrees available.
I really don’t care about their retirement. For every dollar I don’t pay in taxes I increase my contribution to my own retirement. With the pending increase of contributions to 5.8 billion dollars my taxes will have to increase so that I can pay in another $5800 so teachers can have a cushy retirement! Convert all their pensions into private 401K’s and be done with it.
Its MY money and I want it NOW!
No, there are 12.6 million people affected by this action and those 12.6 million people can't afford $5.8 billion to bailout the pensions for the 675,000.
What those 675,000 have to understand is that they are going to be affected by bad investments just as everyone else was and take a hit just as everyone else does.
If done right they are at least going to get something decent out of it.
Teachers are going to have to understand they are not going to get $70,000 pensions and legislators are going to have to understand they are not going to get $300,000 pensions.
And with regard to that 7.5 percent contribution the public workers were making, if you worked in the private sector and considered the contribution you were making to your 401K -- which in many cases was more than 7.5 percent -- you would look at your 401K and not feel a lot of sympathy.
This is not about getting political power and winning elections this is about saving people's homes.