the unions couldn't care less about the taxpayers or where the money would come from to pay for their extortion, so... i now couldn't care less it their pensions go unpaid
Posted on 12/12/2010 3:16:52 PM PST by Hojczyk
Want to know the single biggest reason why New York City is thinking about laying off thousands of teachers, jacking up parking meter fees and scaling back fire protection?
The answer boils down to one word: pensions.
The public pension time bomb that fiscal watchdogs and this page have warned about for years is now exploding - and ripping huge holes in government budgets across the state.
No municipality will sustain more damage than New York City, which next year faces a mind-boggling pension tab of $8.35 billion - a 19% increase in one year - at a time when Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council are forced to hack away at practically every other expenditure.
And the devastating drain will keep getting worse unless Albany lawmakers finally stand up to the public employee unions, dump the current retirement system and replace it with something taxpayers can afford.
Until that day, the city faces agonizing tradeoffs.
Take, for example, the Fire Department's boneheaded plan to charge drivers as much as $490 for responding to accident scenes. Is it any wonder, when the FDNY spends more on pensions and other fringe benefits than it does on salaries?
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Warm and fuzzy until the fed steps in and bails these blue centers out with tax dollars. Then I start to feel like I need to puke.
Well that’s the problem with places like California.
I could applaud as their newly elected Dem leaders take them over the precipice of bankruptcy, but I know they’re gonna get a national taxpayer bailout.
Don’t even get me stated about bankruptcy. I cam the President of our HOA. High end condos..and I can’t tell you how many deadbeats file bankruptcy, and one they file, we cannot say BOO to them. They can come here, use the facilities and not pay a dime. It’s like spitting in our faces. It’s theft and there’s nothing we can do.
NY City will pay out $1 million to each retired NYC cop within a few years of retirement.
Beware of government employees, be they firefighter, cops or government paper pushers, that try to convince everyone how important they and their jobs are...
Plain and simple, they're *all* overpaid, with lottery style retirement pensions which we can no longer afford....
They are killing America....
I think paying the union employees for the work they do is great. Lets start by not paying for the 25-50% drop out rates some places in New York has. Screw the Unions.
I know a guy who retired from the police force in his 40’s...gets a pension..became a County Supervisor..gets a salary from that and then when he retires will get a pension and STILL be young enough to get another job. It’s absurd. It has to change.
“Soylent green.”
Now damn, that is funny. :)
How about eliminating that $12,000 Christmas present (aka: Variable Supplement) that retirees of the NYPD, FDNY and a few other select groups receive each and every December?
A defined contribution plan, instead of a defined benefit plan.
the unions couldn't care less about the taxpayers or where the money would come from to pay for their extortion, so... i now couldn't care less it their pensions go unpaid
With the unionized PC gender-neutral "firefighters" we have around here, I'd just as soon they stayed in the station and let me deal with it. Really, and I'm surrounded by forest and chaparral. Those kids are dangerous.
The reality is that "firefighters" don't fight fires around here anyway, they "supervise" prisoners who do the real grunt work. You should have seen them during the Summit Fire, sitting at staging areas with lines of trucks collecting overtime, laughing and cavorting, hitting on the womyn. Then they take home a fat pension for a "hazardous" career sitting on their butts writing rules and filing for grants. Seriously.
Give me the days when private fire companies raced for the opportunity to fight a fire. In the old days they were under contract with the insurance companies, but could just as easily be by subscription verified by third party providing a performance bond. The current model needs to be rethought completely.
How is that possible that they don’t pay anything?
Even with a fresh start over - why do they get something
once again for FREE? What law on the books is that?
We aren’t gonna have a situation where we close schools, open prisons, and shut down everything else so public employee pensioners can play golf 5 days a week. Not gonna happen.
*********************
LOL!
What do you want me to say?
New York contains some of the bluest areas on the voting map. Nothing there is going to change.
Sure, as long as they put out the fire.
California’s $500-billion pension time bomb
The staggering amount of unfunded debt stands to crowd out funding for many popular programs. Reform will take something sadly lacking in the Legislature: political courage.
Opinion
Los Angeles Times
April 06, 2010|By David Crane
The state of California’s real unfunded pension debt clocks in at more than $500 billion, nearly eight times greater than officially reported.
That’s the finding from a study released Monday by Stanford University’s public policy program, confirming a recent report with similar, stunning findings from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.
To put that number in perspective, it’s almost seven times greater than all the outstanding voter-approved state general obligation bonds in California.
Why should Californians care? Because this year’s unfunded pension liability is next year’s budget cut to important programs. For a glimpse of California’s budgetary future, look no further than the $5.5 billion diverted this year from higher education, transit, parks and other programs in order to pay just a tiny bit toward current unfunded pension and healthcare promises. That figure is set to triple within 10 years and — absent reform — to continue to grow, crowding out funding for many programs vital to the overwhelming majority of Californians.
How did we get here? The answer is simple: For decades — and without voter consent — state leaders have been issuing billions of dollars of debt in the form of unfunded pension and healthcare promises, then gaming accounting rules in order to understate the size of those promises.
The citation is a speech made by the Gubernator himself earlier this summer. I do not have an exact reference at the tips of my fingers, but Arnold is the source for that stat.
I agree that bankruptcy is going to be the only answer, not only for the States but for a lot of localities as well. There won’t be any State bailouts coming, and that is a good thing because it’s going to force the changes we absolutely have to make in all levels of Government.
Like what?
A defined contribution plan, instead of a defined benefit plan.
Thank you Lou....
Well said.
For those in other states, it means the corrupt government is financially gang raping the tax paying private sector.
It is the only way to put the pensions at a reasonable level.
The cheaters are the ones who got the outrageous pensions in the first place.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.