Posted on 10/22/2011 4:56:39 PM PDT by reaganaut1
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After decades of drift, denial and inaction, Rhode Islands $14.8 billion pension system is in crisis. Ten cents of every state tax dollar now goes to retired public workers. Before long, Ms. Raimondo has been cautioning in whistle-stops here and across the state, that figure will climb perilously toward 20 cents. But the scary thing is that no one really knows. The Providence Journal recently tried to count all the municipal pension plans outside the state system and stopped at 155, conceding that it might have missed some. Even the Securities and Exchange Commission is asking questions, including the big one: Are these numbers for real?
Were in the fight of our lives for the future of this state, Ms. Raimondo said in a recent interview. And if the fight is lost? Either the pension fund runs out of money or cities go bankrupt.
All of this might seem small in the scheme of national affairs. After all, this is Little Rhody (population: 1,052,567). But the nightmare scenario is that Ms. Raimondo has seen the future of America, and it is Rhode Island. As Wall Street fixates on the financial disaster in Greece, a fiscal wreck is playing out right here. And the odds are that it wont be the last. Before this is over, many Americans may be forced to rethink what government means at the state and local level.
Economists have talked endlessly about a financial reckoning for the United States, of a moment in the not-so-far-away when the nations profligate ways catch up with it. But for Rhode Island, that moment is now. The state has moved to safeguard its bond investors, to avoid being locked out of the credit markets.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
No there isn’t.
What kind of people would name their colony Rhode Island when it’s joined to the mainland on three sides? :)
You eventually run out of Other Peoples’ Money.
It’s going to be ugly. Very, very ugly. These programs are totally unsustainable...but we’ve all known that for a long time and can’t get our legislators to do a flippin’ thing about it.
Your Average Joe is totally under-funded to live out the rest of his life as he’s used to - either via government or personal savings.
The same thing holds in MA; non-Catholic Dems, as well as Catholics are wedded to their political ideas, which they learned from the crib, and don't seem to want to challenge, in any way. I think some of it has to do with the fact that they're from immigrant families which came here in the late 1800s and early 1900s. When they arrived, it was Democrat groups that helped them assimilate, get jobs, and 'guided' their votes, so naturally, they felt more beholden to the Dems than the Republicans, and kept that loyalty all these many years. They still have the notion that it's the Democrats who are for the 'working man', and can't see that the policies of the modern Democrat party work against those who truly DO work hard and want to succeed and create some wealth for themselves.
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