The state employee pension systems should be shut down and the state should get out of the pension business. When government unions are allowed to run up the cost of paying state employees to the degree they have it’s time for push-back. The math has never worked. The promised pensions are often so high they’re really not pensions at all but a guaranteed lifetime paycheck even after someone retires.
If you’ve been following the writing of Bill Zettler on this issue as I have for the better part of a decade, you know that the level of dishonesty and corruption is very high when it comes to the pension funds. The employees should be dumped into the Social Security System like everyone else. Speaking of Social Security, get this:
Our government pays more money to its own retirees — who represent 20% of the active workforce — than it pays in Social Security retirement benefits to everybody else put together.
That excerpt comes from this article: Social Security is Healthy Compared to Public Sector Pensions. Talk about income inequality — this is retirement income inequality big time.
Here’s another excerpt I love — this one is about the Teachers Retirement System:
[T]he truth is taxpayers have contributed much more to TRS than its own members have.
Member contributions increased by 108% between 1998 and 2012. During the same time period, taxpayer contributions to teacher retirements increased by 409%.
In 2012 alone, Illinois taxpayers contributed $2.56 billion to TRS, almost three times more than what its members contributed.
That comes from this article: Illinois’ pension crisis keeps getting worse.
It’s time for another issue file dump. Here’s a sampling of some of what’s been posted lately on this topic:
A list and map of the almost 5,000 “educator” pensions that top $100,000 per year
Promises, Promises: Public Union Pensions NOT Sacrosanct
What Does It Mean When a Pension Plan Is Funded?
“Collective Theft” and an Eight-Point “Bold” Plan to Save Illinois
Will campaign cash influence Illinois pension case?
Madigan pension plan makes guarantee taxpayers can’t afford
Report: 5 state pension funds owed $100.5 billion
Illinois taxpayers pay no matter how public pensions perform
2 Blue Island brothers in line for 6 government pensions
Detroit pensioners learn nothing is guaranteed
Detroit bankruptcy proposal would leave pensioners with 16 cents on the dollar
How significant will Detroit be for public pension policy?
How Unions and Bankers Work Together to Protect Unsustainable Defined Benefits
Retirement unlikely for some blue-collar Americans
