Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The pension problem ...

First, here is what Nick Gillespie notes that the:
split between private and public-sector workers is one of the biggest issues in contemporary America. We are, as Matt Welch has noted again and again, broke. There's no money left anymore people. We need a fundamental re-do of public sector financing on every level, from entitlement spending to employee compensation. Most clearly, the public sector needs to shift to self-financing of its retirement, just like the private sector has done over the past generation. There are not enough private-sector workers to pay the taxes necessary to continue what's going on in Ohio and elsewhere.
Now, you might dismiss this because Gillespie is, after all, a staunch libertarian with Reason.
But, then here is a report from our capital city's newspaper, the Statesman Journal:
PERS has to increase the contributions to make up for investment losses that occurred during the stock market free-fall of 2008.
"The market downturn dug a huge hole in PERS that needs to be made up," said Brenda Wilson, the city of Eugene's intergovernmental relations manager and PERS consultant to the Oregon League of Cities. "Even though there were positive earnings last year, the hole is bigger than that. Not every single employer will see a rate increase, but the vast majority of them will."
The increase will cost Oregon governments participating in PERS a total of more than $1 billion in additional employer pension contributions, according to information provided by PERS after public-records requests from the Statesman Journal. To cover that expense, cuts to classrooms, parks, libraries and myriad other community services will have to be considered. Some local governments might lay off workers.
Oh well, .... this will be another one to add to the earlier posts related to pensions.  I bet this will not be the last one either.

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