Posted on 07/08/2014 5:05:54 PM PDT by Kaslin
The retirees were promised too much in many cases.
Low-information workers.
Detroit public employees got rich of Detroit government mismanagement seems only fair.
Are they figuring in the effects of the Death Panels in the fiduciary calculations?
If not, the long term scenario is probably better than predicted. Every year sliced off the lifespan is a big plus for a pension plan.
I’ll bet their pensions are pretty good no matter what this article states....any govt retiree with a defined pension has a huge gift on the backs of taxpayers and they must know that.....so no sympathy from me....
"Promised too much" hardly describes it.
Its more like the unions manipulated and blackmailed the politicians, while sticking it to the taxpayer to receive benefits that could never have been paid.
While I think the individual retirees are the least guilty of the guilty parties, its still going to cost them something.
Union members nationwide should be asking themselves if the deal they’re getting is too good to be true.
If they won’t help their city, they are not good citizens.
Besides, who in TF retires after 20-25years of work, at 80-90% of their highest wage earned in a year or the top three highest years?
well they voted for it, now they can pay for it
“If you like your retirement, you can keep your retirement. Period.”
Exactly. This is such a horrible situation. The Dems promised government workers rich, unaffordable pensions to buy their votes. The workers should have known better and saved more. But now that the Ponzi Scheme has fallen apart, these workers old and not in a position to work to earn the money they should have been saving. So they are screwed. Sure, its their own fault, but I don’t want to see them starving. It makes me so angry at the Democrats that they created this horrible situation to buy votes. They disgust me.
Everything Obama says should have an asterisk after it.
It must end. Such debts are illegal under almost every state law. Budgets are not being voted on by currently elected councils but by benefits offerings of the past.
Harry Reid would refer to such sacrifices as “Patriotic.”
They could make it more enticing for these workers to accept these pension changes by sweetening the deal: Give each retiree a free Detroit home! They could have the option of buying it for their full market value of $1 or $2... but, because they are understanding ex-municipal employees... Homes for FREE!
Thank you Michael Schaus for not putting ‘tic’ on the end of the word Democrat in your title.
The government of Detroit and been anything but democratic for years and years.
I have real mixed feelings about hurting the retirees to ‘save’ the city. Looks to me like no amount of money can ‘save’ Detroit.
There is a lot of pressure for them to settle. It is bankruptcy. So if they don’t agree the judge can and will impose a settlement which may be less.
A 4.5 percent cut doesn’t sound too bad considering how they were over-promised in the first place.
That’s true (employees promised too much), and bankruptcy is actually healthy. Detroit is finally getting a much needed wake up call that OPM (other people’s money) eventually runs out. Our nation is headed for a similar wake up call. We’ll all be millionaires of course, but what good is that when a million won’t buy dinner? Even the Ryan budget plan didn’t purport to balance the budget—much less spend down the debt—for something like a decade. Our leaders don’t know how to extricate our nation from Detroit-style overspending, and the end result will probably be worse.
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