BP finally managed to place a cap on its leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.
Bristol Palin — that other “BP” in the news — is engaged to be married.
And the new iPhone’s antenna problems can be fixed by holding it in a special, dainty way — or by adding on a plastic holder.
So, with popular news stories wrapping up, can we now get back to fixing the political mess we’re in?
With the Republicans now said to be divided on whether to actually produce a game plan to fix up the fix we’re in, you can see how all the old perversities of politics still remain in full play at the federal level.
But look closer to home. There’s a lot to fix there.
Throughout the country, politicians have made all sorts of bad deals with public employee unions regarding pay and pensions. They love to spend our money buying their votes. In cities like San Diego, the invested pension funds’ values have plummeted, making renegotiations necessary, and necessarily painful. Your town may be next.
Simple solution? We need constitutional amendments preventing politicians from promising pension pay-outs of any amount. The only kind of pension governments should be allowed to offer is the placement of a negotiated amount of funds in a retirement account to be managed by the employee or the employee’s assigns.
Taxpayers must not be held in hock to the unfulfillable promises of a previous set of politicians.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
5 replies on “Pension Problems”
Ho! You think San Diego is the only city with this problem? Try Springfield MO. Population ≈ 150,000. Long term debt to the police/firemens’ pension fund = $200,000,000.
All because a dumb ass city manager decided 7 or 8 years ago it was cheaper to give those employees an unsustainable pension give-away, rather than a 2% salary raise.
We the citizens are now paying an extra 3/4 cent sales tax to pay for the shortfall. The debt may NOT be paid off in twenty years.
*%&#^ government leaders LOVE to give away money that will have to be paid AFTER they retire.
Too bad there’s no way to attach that retired city manager’s retirement. Why should he be able to bask in retirement for leaving the taxpayers on the hook forever? Need a way to attach Congress’s retirement too for their similar malfeasance.
Mr. Jacob, Of course you are correct, a replacement of the very common GENEROUS (and very risky to taxpayers) Defined Benefit Plans with (401kstyle) Defined Contribution Plans.
But will the politicians (mostly in the Union’s pocket) let this happen? No they won’t.
The BEST answer is to OUTSOURCE 90+% of ALL Civil Servants. Maywood, CA just Outsourced ALL OF THEM, and it has worked out wonderfully … see link here …
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/business/20maywood.html?pagewanted=2
Yeah,let’s farm it all out, maybe to China.
Why do we begrudge our public employees a pension? This is so mean spirited.
John Ken, We wouldn’t and don’t begrudge out Public employees a pension …equal (as a % of pay) to that which a comparably paid Private sector worker would get retiring at the SAME age, and with the SAME years of service.
However, due to greed on their (or their Union’s) part and complicity with the politicians that approve public employee pensions (80 – 90% of which is paid for by taxpayers, not the employees themselves) the public sector pensions are ROUTINELY 4 – 6 times greater in value than what the private taxpayers get from their employers.
Such extraordinarily rich pensions are unsustainable, grossly unfair to taxpayers, and need to .… at the very least … STOP GROWING.
OUTSOURCING is the surest way to get there .… BEFORE we go broke.