Even after numerous changes, including raising employee contributions, the NJ pension funds are in poor shape. And no, it’s not simply because current and past governors have failed to make required contributions.
The plans as structured are still not affordable, they are out of sync with the real world and with the pensions or lack thereof available to the vast majority of New Jersey’s citizens.
Why should public employees have pensions and other benefits that far exceed those of the people picking up the tab, the people who Liz Warren and friends say are struggling, who need free college and higher Social Security benefits?
Enter the Democratic solution to the problem. Put a new income surtax on millionaires in NJ (the highest taxed state in the U.S.). Once again, instead of fixing the problem or telling NJ citizens the truth about how the State got to its current predicament, the solution is more taxes and let the real problem go unresolved.
Don’t laugh, this may be about the “what exit” state, but there are plenty of other states in a similar situation. And it’s always the same story; the alliance between public employee unions and (nearly always) Democratic politicians.
Governor Christie should have made the full required pension payment and then cut services and programs for NJ citizens so they can see the true impact of these public employee plans.
In the end, as in NJ, it’s the taxpayers and the workers who suffer most.
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