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Posted on 12/10/2011 4:15:53 PM PST by macquire
COLUMBUS, Ohio - After nearly 40 years in public education, Patrick Godwin spends his retirement days running a horse farm east of Sacramento, Calif., with his daughter.
His departure from the workaday world is likely to be long and relatively free of financial concerns, after he retired last July at age 59 with a pension paying $174,308 a year for the rest of his life.
Such guaranteed pensions for relatively youthful government retirees — paid in similar fashion to millions nationwide — are contributing to nationwide friction with the public sector workers. They have access to attractive defined-benefit pensions and retiree health care coverage that most private sector workers no longer do.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
It is for me, but not for thee.
Yeah....they want to go after the military. Alright, fine, cut your own throats.
I think being mad at gov workers is misplaced. During economic boom times, private workers doing equivalent types of jobs commanded salaries greater then public workers. In fact during boom times, anyone who took a gov job was considered a loser. Probably did not have the GPA to be hired by private companies. Now the economy tanked, private salaries reduced by H-1B workers and off shoring of jobs, instead of being angry at corporate America for reducing private salaries thru globalization, one should not turn their anger at gov workers. Government worker salaries and pensions are posted for the public to see. If there is no public revenues to support lucrative pensions and salaries, public workers need to accept this economic reality and changes. This is the only area where I will conflict with their union’s demand for more taxes. Most reasonable gov workers have eyes to see that the economy is not doing so well and tax revenues are down. Joe public only ask for two things, gov help business pay down debt and free up capital to expand and hire; and the ones who caused the economic meltdown should be held accountable and punished. So far Obama failed on these two counts.
His pension is 3x my best year. Have a merry XMas.
“Government worker salaries and pensions are posted for the public to see. If there is no public revenues to support lucrative pensions and salaries, public workers need to accept this economic reality and changes”
The ‘solution’ seems to be to cut off the young folks from the pensions.
Thanks folks for helping us out when we need to get a solid start in life. :)
Cuts for thee, but not for me.
“gov workers”
1) They’re not “workers”, they’re “employees”. We’re not communists here.
2) There shouldn’t be government unions in the first place. An employee union negotiates with ownership/management. For government, the ownership is the citizens, which the government employee is one. So by definition a government employee in a union is both the employee and the employer, so they’re negotiating with themselves. It’s a conflict of interest.
Watch for a Congressional salary hike, on the next QE and IMF for euro.
Unfortunately, it is looking more and more like an Icelanicsizing for these invaders as the only solution.
That is a trade off gov workers need to make. Do you all share the cuts, or do you preserve your salaries and benefits and fire all the young workers thru reduction in force (seniority system). Europe is more austere. At least in the US gov retiree still keep their pension amounts while new workers will have to accept new lower benefits. In Europe the budget shortfalls are so great, retirees have their pension checks cut in half. Be grateful that in the US gov workers have not faced this yet. If the economy does not pick up and pension fund shortfalls grows, prospect of retirees as well as workers take a hit at the same time may become a reality.
Don’t get your hopes up on OWS...but this clown is CLEARLY the 1% of retirees.
Don’t even try to rationalize with the have nots! They never remember all those lavish bonuses and office partiesthey enjoyed. We in the meantime, never got a single bonus, or an office party we didn’t pay for out of our own pockets.
This is the ultimate slap in the face to those of us who devoted our lives to lower pay and benifits in the beginning so we would be secure in our senior years.
How were we to know that those fools would spend all their bonus checks on toys rather than retirement.
Efem all, I’m going to smile and hold my head up proudly in 86 days when I get to say goodby to all those who wasted their future then cry foul about mine!!!
I agree with you on number two. Gov workers should not unionized because they politically can vote for officials who should be negotiating on behalf of the taxpayers. Definitely a conflict of interest.
As for point one, worker and employee are synonymous. Using one term over the other does not indicate if one is a Communist. Silly point.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
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Everyone knows a government employee. While some work hard, are conscientious and have a good attitude, that does not detract from the fact that they generally get extravagant pensions and while still working get a lot of time off for a variety of reasons. There are also many government employees who fake disability to draw pensions tax free or work a lot of overtime for the last couple years to inflate their pensions. To top it off there are many government employees who don’t give a crap, are laggards and manipulate the system so they accomplish nothing of value to anyone. That said...Have a Merry Christmas, everyone.
Believe me, my Hub never came even close to that in all his working years.....not even with extra jobs he worked.
I work as a private parochial school teacher, so I fail to see why I should be thankful that the government feels it doesn’t have to do more with less.
Heaven knows the rest of us have.
hal, my Hub worked hard all those years and contributed to his own pension. He left after 30 years for a better job. That was 14 years ago and he retired for good in January...he’s almost 64 years old now. He always tried to do the right thing....to make sure we would be secure in our old age and you are so right about those who take advantage and make a nest on the ground for themselves at the expense of others who played by the rules and did the right thing....(like my Hub). I should be ashamed to let this bother me but I’m just a selfish person I guess (sarc). Merry Christmas to you too hal and I truly mean it.
+1
This story is about to repeat itself all over our country. The sad story will start with ”I was promised” then it will move to ”I earned it” then it goes to ”I need it” and finally to ”The rest of you are ungrateful”.
You and your husband made a choice to work for the government and entrust your future to politician's promises. Now you act all shocked that what was taken from a taxpayer and given to you via a politician can now be ended by that same politician?
Here is a news flash for all of you government dependent welfare recipients which includes SS in all its forms, and all other taxpayer financed payments: Your payments are only as good as the next election.
Fine and dandy. Never mind that he contributed 9% of his salary toward that pension all those years. Never mind he wanted a better paying job at the time the to support his family. Never mind when he signed on there WAS NO UNION.....just an employee association. The union came in midstream and Hub and many of his coworkers didn’t want it or like it but were helpless to do anything about it. We’ve always been Republican but now except for a small handful I wouldn’t give most Republicans the time of day. The Demonrats sold their souls to the devil long ago. The 2 party system in this country I hope will soon be a thing of the past.
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