NO union, state or municipal bailouts or we drop you like a hot potato.

start living under the same rules of the road as the rest of us. I’ve never understood why it has essentially been accepted as a birthright that public sector employees get huge pensions funded by the taxpayer.

This reminds me of the squabble Gov Christie got into with the schoolteacher when the Gov had the audacity to suggest teachers contribute more to their own retirement.

This house of cards was going to crumble sooner or later and, as a taxpayer, I refuse to take it on the chin for these people to help sustain what will never work. This public sector entitlement is going away one way or another.

For public employees to take the revenue they receive and grant themselves pensions funded by the taxpayer is just plain unAmerican, they knew better, and they are getting what they deserve.

to be true it probably is. What happened to this saying and why isn’t it being used now? What they are getting sounds to good to be true…..uh which means it is.

If you live in NJ like me its time we all take our medicine and have the state claim bankruptcy. Even for as hard as Gov. Christie is trying, the past political payoffs and public sector union ties have put NJ on such a steep downward spiral there is no fixing it. We need to claim bankruptcy, then reform public sector benefits and state welfare. While we are at it, we should put up a real big stink to not participate in Obamacare which will only further burden the NJ taxpayer with Medicaid increases. The day of reckoning has come and we finally need to deal with the public sector robbing the private sector. Do you know that a single person in NJ making $55k/year can get food stamps? Its crazy, it all needs to end. No one is entitled to anything, especially not public sector employee’s who WORK FOR US.

in today’s Washington Examiner.

And noting the seemingly insurmountable problem in Chicago.

With all this continuing BS from unions and Obama and the slam-it-thru Congress last week, why in the world are Krauthammer and Baronne saying “Oh yeah, Obama is good to be re-elected in 2012 now?”

Municipalities paying public employee union and health benefits is just another form of welfare.

This kind of socialism, like all the others, will go bankrupt when you run out of other people’s money.

A remedy for beggar states

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/23/AR2010122304421.html

The nation’s menu of crises caused by governmental malpractice may soon include states coming to Congress as mendicants, seeking relief from the consequences of their choices. Congress should forestall this by passing a bill with a bland title but explosive potential.

Principal author of the Public Employee Pension Transparency Act is Rep. Devin Nunes, a Republican from California, where about 80 cents of every government dollar goes for government employees’ pay and benefits. His bill would define the scale of the problem of underfunded state and local government pensions and would notify states not to approach Congress like Oliver Twists, holding out porridge bowls and asking for more.

H.R. 6484:
Public Employee Pension Transparency Act
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-6484

Oliver Twist did not choose his fate. California, New York and Illinois – three states whose conditions are especially parlous – did. And in November, each of these deep-blue states elected Democratic governors beholden to public employee unions.

San Francisco is spending $400 million a year on public employees’ pensions, up from $175 million in 2005. In November, San Franciscans voted on Proposition B, which would have required city employees to contribute up to 10 percent of their salaries to their pension plans, and to pay half the health-care premiums of their dependents. Michael Moritz, a venture capitalist, says: “A typical San Francisco resident with one dependent pays $953 a month for health care, while the typical city employee pays less than $10.”

San Francisco voters defeated Proposition B. If they now experience a self-inflicted budgetary earthquake, there is no national obligation to ameliorate the disaster they, like many other cities and states, have chosen.

People seeking backdoor bailouts hope that the fourth branch of government, a.k.a. Ben Bernanke, will declare an emergency power for the Federal Reserve to buy municipal bonds to lower localities’ borrowing costs. This political act might mitigate one crisis by creating a larger one – the Fed’s forfeiture of its independence.

If this stuff reaches a crisis stage in the bind market, my guess is Obama will use the FED to buy Municipal bonds since the new Republican Congress won’t dare give states like California and Illinois an actual legislative bailout.

There will be an outcry over this, but my guess is it will unfortunately be enough to kick the can down the road until after the 2012 election.

If you think Prichard’s retirement plan is bonkers, the state of Alabama’s teachers and government workers get an even better deal. By law the employee puts in 5% and the state contributes 12+%

By the way, it’s Prichard not Pritchard.

” “They (public employees) deserve to be able to retire with a reasonable income when they reach retirement age.” Perennial public employee Don Webb. Newport Beach, Ca.
I read this paragraph several times. Something really has the smell of Bell California wrapped in a paragraph of nice compassionate sounding words. But, compassion for who!? Compassion for public employees that suck the blood of taxpayers!? Compassion for taxpayers who are forced to donate blood even, when they themselves, are on life support systems.
“They (public employees) deserve. In the real world that really means retire at the most productive times of our lives at 42 – 55 years of age. The public employee gets 35 to 50% more in wages, benefits and retire than the private sector.
The unfunded pension debt in California is over $500 billion and Nationwide over $3.2 Trillion .The State of California has two classes of citizens: those who enjoy rich public benefits and those who pay for them. The City and the State have become a benefit, retirement and health insurance company that sweeps the streets and supplies police services as a side job. The city and state have unwise contracts and rigid labor laws and no city or state should have to choose between it’s legitimate functions and paying benefits, health insurance and pension funds.

The author is “Right on the Money” no pun intended.
A legal mechanism for the States to file bankruptcy should be one of the first items on the agenda of the new congress when it is seated. This could be one of the few new bills where real bipartisan agreement might be possible.
There should be under no circumstances any consideration of Federal Bailouts from any Federal source for floundering States and Municipalities. The US House of Representatives is the only legitimate source of Federal Funding for whatever cause. It must retain that “Constitutional” status against all comers including the Administration and the Fed.
As for the States and Cities in trouble, they got that way, local voters let them get into these messes. Let them find their own way out.