Bailing Out Greed, Self-dealing, Incompetence and Naive Citizens

Here we go again, the ultimate bailout … the citizens of many states deserve to get screwed; they voted for the politicians and they blindly supported public unions and even now are vilifying the few politicians trying to fix the mess.

This is all BS, of course  Someone has to pay the unfunded liability no matter what. Do you seriously believe a state’s pension payments could drop by 50%, that all promised benefits could be paid at current levels and that no one is picking up that missing 50%?  The “annual payments” as they are called represent the assumed required money to pay benefits (current and future) minus the assumed earnings for the pension trust. You don’t magically make that disappear. They talk about borrowing expenses; well states shouldn’t be borrowing to fund their pensions.

At least he admits that taxpayers are footing the bill for public employee pensions, but once again a problem simply appears with no one responsible … aren’t bureaucracy and politics grand?  Yes, it is a national crisis, a crisis caused by governors, state legislators and public employee labor unions, often trading votes for overly generous pensions that very, very few of the taxpayers footing the bill can even hope to receive.

You worry about CEO pay and inequality: this is inequality of the worst kind.

State politicians screwed this up and now this one wants the citizens of all fifty states to bail them out … amazing😒

TRENTON – Calling the $1 trillion in unfunded state and local government pension liabilities a national crisis, Senate President Steve Sweeney today urged the creation of a federal pension debt restructuring program to reduce annual payments and provide long-term savings for states throughout the country, including New Jersey.

States would have to get voter approval to participate in the plan and agree to make their required pension payments.

“A federal plan to restructure the pension debts would cut annual payments and save the taxpayers money,” said Senator Sweeney. “The biggest winners are the taxpayers because they are the ones who will pay less in future pension payments and avoid cuts in essential services. This is a win-win for taxpayers across the country because it will avert future tax increases and program cuts and for public employees and retirees because it will protect their pensions.”

Senator Sweeney said that a low-interest federal loan program would cost far less than current borrowing expenses, reducing overall costs for the states and their taxpayers. For New Jersey, future pension payments would drop by approximately 50 percent.