If you’re having trouble grasping the whole government union/pension/Wisconsin/Ohio story, this article from Rhode Island is a great place to start. Spend five minutes reading it, and you’ll see why the government pension/benefits issue is such a disaster for you and every other taxpayer.
It’s all here:
Government Workers Pay Next To Nothing For Their Benefits.
Chafee is seeking to raise to 11.75 percent the contributions of state workers paying 8.75 percent and teachers 9.5 percent of their own pay into the state retirement fund since 1995 for the increasingly rare defined-benefit pensions the state still promises them
Government Workers Are Doing Better Than The Rest Of Us In This Economy.
[Chafee] is proposing to do so in a year when state workers — because of a six-month delay in getting their anticipated July 2010 raise — are getting two 3-percent raises, six month apart this year....
According to the state treasurer’s office, [the pension system allows] a typical teacher to retire with a $41,892 pension after a 30-year career, and get $1.021 million in cumulative benefits by age 75, $1.753 million by age 85.
These Generous Benefits Are Crushing Taxpayers And Exploding Budgets.
the taxpayer cost of providing a comfortable retirement for public-sector workers in Rhode Island will rise by $50 million next year. Barring any major changes in benefits this year, the required state contribution to the pension fund for state employees will increase from 20.78 percent to 22.98 percent of payroll, according to the state budget office. That translates into a $20.5-million hike next year — from $129.4 million to $149.9 million — in the amount that taxpayers will have to pay to keep the state’s pension promises to state workers.
the total taxpayer tab for these public employee pensions is rising from a projected $305.1 million this year to $358.7 million in the year that begins on July 1.
The Problem Is So Bad, Even With The Increases, The Taxpayer Is Screwed.
Chafee is not suggesting that the state use the additional $40.7 million in worker contributions to reduce what the taxpayers have to put in. He proposes that it go into the pension fund itself, to help reduce, albeit in a small way, the $4.9 billion in unfunded obligations it has to legions of present and future retirees.
This is the system government union members are sending death threats and terrorizing small businesses to protect. But they’re not shaking down businesses, they’re shaking down taxpayers. That’s you.
"The truth is something [Warren] probably prefers not to confront. Harvard doesn’t come calling just because you’re a smart lawyer and a terrific teacher — not with Warren’s modest, Oklahoma upbringing and non-Ivy League education. She is not your typical Harvard professor. At a certain point, when the law school was under pressure to promote diversity, she represented a three-fer: a great lawyer with a national profile, a woman, and a minority, at least by virtue of family lore. "
-- Joan Vennochi
