[quote=briansd1]CA renter, I think you will enjoy this latest by Paul Krugman.
By all means, let’s talk about visionary ideas; but we can take a big step toward full employment just by using the federal government’s low borrowing costs to help state and local governments rehire the schoolteachers and police officers they laid off, while restarting the road repair and improvement projects they canceled or put on hold.
Krugman is right that state and local governments have been cutting back a lot.
But, IMO, that doesn’t mean that pensions don’t need to be adjusted. I’d rather see pensions cut back than cuts in education and social services. The role of state and local governments is to provide services, not support former employees’ cushy retirements.
Unfortunately, pensions are contracts that come first. And why would local politicians and administrators cut their own pensions?[/quote]
Brian,
You, and a lot of other people out there, still don’t seem to get it. Public sector workers HAVE taken cuts, even cuts related to their pensions.
Let me state this one more time, since so few people seem to get it: TAXPAYERS DO NOT PAY THE BENEFITS FOR PUBLIC RETIREES. They pay for the employers’ portion of the *contribution* amount. This taxpayer-funded portion amounts to anywhere from 15-25% of the benefit amounts (depends on the fund and the employer).
What’s been happening during recent contract negotiations, is that public employers have been shifting more and more of the contribution requirements onto the employees. In other words, PUBLIC EMPLOYEES are taking the hits on their pensions, reducing the amounts that taxpayers are paying toward their pensions.
This has been going on now for the past few years.
