The New York State worker, whether he or she is a teacher, fireman, police officer, sanitation worker, bureaucrat, etc.., will now have to make sacrifices in order to keep his or her job. The first thing to go should be their pensions, these should immediately convert to 403b’s. They will have to pay more into their healthcare. No retirement after 20 years of service, it is not actuarily sound to pay someone who is 45 years old a pension for 40 more years when they didn’t even pay in for their first 20 years of service. If they retire and move out of NY state, they must pay an additional tax on their pension, since they are no longer adding to the NY economy. These are all things that have to be done now in order to reduce the future pain we NY taxpayers will have to endure later.
In some professions, you really DO need to pay pensions starting at 20 years. I’m talking: cop, fireman, & military. If you don’t, lots of good people won’t hang around. For others (e.g., teacher, transit worker, etc), I agree, there is no excuse.
That being said, the Politicians will have to stand up to the Unions. Don’t count on that happening until its too late (e.g., system in in default). In New Jersey, Corozine is talking about deferring pension payments to pension funds that are already in the red. He’s your typical gutless politician, kicking the can down the road for someone else to clean uup.
Personally, I think the Government will just print $$ rather than make the tough choices. As a result, we will unfortunately ALL get what the lowest common demoninator among us deserve.
I know a number of people living high off their govt pensions or their disability....