[SeekAndFind]

[PeterPrinciple]

The only sure answer is to continue reducing pension benefits that workers earn in order to slow the growth of future retirement bills before the gap between what states owe retirees and the money that pension funds have on hand grows so large that there’s no way to close it—and the whole system collapses.

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or they could buy Chicago bonds for a guaranteed 5% return.

[rrrod]

Interesting..thanks.

[datura]

The best example I know of for pension funding is the Ontario teachers pension fund. They have been buying energy related firms North America wide, and have a huge surplus.

[OttawaFreeper]

I believe I recall reading here a few years back that one thing that Illinois public servants do often is retire at age 55 or even 50 from their job and then go to a neighbouring state like Iowa or Indiana and take another public servant job there for a few years and have their Illinois pension as well as the regular salary from the new job in the other state and have pensions from both jobs when they retire from the other job a few years later.

[FLT-bird]

3 words:

NO FEDERAL BAILOUT

States that chose to be fiscally irresponsible have utterly no right to dip their hands into the pockets of taxpayers in other states who did not vote for such fiscal irresponsibility. Make them eat their own cooking.

[detsaoT]

Better option would be a Constitutional amendment outlawing public pensions at every level. They made sense when (a) government employees made less than private sector, and (b) people had children more often than pets. With both of those conditions now flagrantly violated, it is impossible to engineer a structurally-sound pension system.

[Myrddin]

My personal 401K savings took at $500,000 hit when Obama took office. $400,000 of that was from my 20 years of contributions and company match. That loss isn't getting bailed out by jacking the burden on taxpayers. I just get screwed. Why are state pensions entitled to any special consideration? Why am I going to get burdened with higher taxes to bail them out while shouldering the full burden of my own losses?

[VanShuyten]

Hmmmmm.....

I wonder why they didn’t include local pension funding with the state funding, particularly since a lot of local school districts and cities rely on state funding.

[blueunicorn6]

I’m sure Montana’s Democrat Governor Bollocks has this all figured out.

He’ll probably have Democrat Senator Jon Tester jump a piece of coal on his tractor.

[Amendment10]

Must be nice for state government employees not to have to worry about collapsing, unconstitutional federal government Social Security.

Mismanaged state pensions that rip of a state’s taxpayers ought to be regarded as a form of embezzlement.