Gorging At The Public Trough

[boedicca]

Use it or lose it ... And this is some of the same bunch that say we should be able to opt out of SS but that they would save better for retirement if they were out of SS?

i'm so sorry the real world isn't to your liking.

the real world is that people spend more than they earn and their savings for retirement is horrible.

For many, that's because they pay such a huge tax burden to fund excessive public sector compensation. For most middle class people, their tax burden is their largest bill.

 

[del]

Use it or lose it ... And this is some of the same bunch that say we should be able to opt out of SS but that they would save better for retirement if they were out of SS?

i'm so sorry the real world isn't to your liking.

the real world is that people spend more than they earn and their savings for retirement is horrible.

and that has what to do with public workers being able to accrue allegedly *unused* sick and vacation time and get a big check when they go from RIP to actually *retiring* and letting another tax sucking loafer take their place?

 

[uscitizen]

i'm so sorry the real world isn't to your liking.

the real world is that people spend more than they earn and their savings for retirement is horrible.

for many, that's because they pay such a huge tax burden to fund excessive public sector compensation. For most middle class people, their tax burden is their largest bill.

lol

 

[uscitizen]

i'm so sorry the real world isn't to your liking.

the real world is that people spend more than they earn and their savings for retirement is horrible.

and that has what to do with public workers being able to accrue allegedly *unused* sick and vacation time and get a big check when they go from RIP to actually *retiring* and letting another tax sucking loafer take their place?

Ohh the iss is not that they were able to accrue those "benefits" but now that the govermnment want to weasel out of paying them.

 

[Truthmatters]

Why is it the right thinks workers are evil?

 

[boedicca]

the real world is that people spend more than they earn and their savings for retirement is horrible.

for many, that's because they pay such a huge tax burden to fund excessive public sector compensation. For most middle class people, their tax burden is their largest bill.

lol

It's true, but I don't expect you to have the intellectual honesty to admit it.

The median family in the U.S. spends over 35% of its income on taxes, far more than their mortgage, food, educating their children, saving for their own retirement...

The Tax Foundation - The Tax Burden of the Median American Family

 

[Big Fitz]

My comment is based upon the bullshit practice of bureaucrats sandbagging sick and vacation days and taking away a huge payday.

Few in the real world get to do so.

Pretty lame hijack attempt, Vermin.

And now for the good news. With state and federal coffers quickly running dry bailing out municipalities for completely Idiotic spending sprees for votes and entitlements and former city employees... It's about to end either by bankruptcy or default or budgetary cuts that are unavoidable.

The socialist paradises that are currently town, city and county governments is going to end, by essentially the seizing and cutting up of the credit cards. The state of Michigan, Detroit in particular, a paragon of leftist governance at the state, city and county level is the bellwether. Watch what happens there, for it will be to your state soon.

 

[uscitizen]

for many, that's because they pay such a huge tax burden to fund excessive public sector compensation. For most middle class people, their tax burden is their largest bill.

lol

It's true, but I don't expect you to have the intellectual honesty to admit it.

The median family in the U.S. spends over 35% of its income on taxes, far more than their mortgage, food, educating their children, saving for their own retirement...

The Tax Foundation - The Tax Burden of the Median American Family

Yes they do and much/most of it on local and property taxes.
But that has nothing to do with the govt trying to weasel out of a debt owed.
I agree rules should be changed for the future, but debts must be paid for those who accrued benefits under the existing rules.

 

[signelect]

I am getting sick and tired of being hosed by city and other public employees. I know that they negotiated a deal and it has to be met but the ones who agreed to it just past it on the the rest of us non-skilled nail pounders. The first cry is public safety. I guess the police in Houston were worried about their safety when they beat a man with handcuffs on. The report said they did not do anything wrong but who did the report, the police or the family of the man.

I would not be a policeman for any amount of pay, they deal with scum and face daily hazzards no one should have to face and they keep my family safe and I appreciate it.l

We have do stop paying more than the job is worth, I just can't afford it.

 

[del]

Why is it the right thinks workers are evil?

why is it you think you think?

think about it.

 

[del]

lol

It's true, but I don't expect you to have the intellectual honesty to admit it.

The median family in the U.S. spends over 35% of its income on taxes, far more than their mortgage, food, educating their children, saving for their own retirement...

The Tax Foundation - The Tax Burden of the Median American Family

Yes they do and much/most of it on local and property taxes.
But that has nothing to do with the govt trying to weasel out of a debt owed.
I agree rules should be changed for the future, but debts must be paid for those who accrued benefits under the existing rules.

neither does this thread.

just sayin

 

[signelect]

I think I made a bad career move, I have to work for my pay, don't get to accumulate anything. I am not saying public employees don't work but why is their job so lucrative, not by a little but by a lot. I admit that firefighters and police have hazards jobs but they are paid very well, can't get fired and don't have to produce any tangible profits. Crime goes up but they don't have to be held accountable. If my sales are down I am responsible. If I defend my self because the police can't or aren't available I have a problem.

I am getting tired of this where all public employees have deals that we pay for but can't get.

 

[Madeline]

I sense no one has bothered to read the entire article, because no one who has yet posted seems pissed off enough to me. How do you feel about:

* 10 weeks of vacation a year? You read that right -- TEN. There's no need to commit fraud and claim to have worked when you did not -- you're well able to take a MONTH off and still accumulate 6 weeks a year towards the bump.

* "Comp time" that is scheduled, e.g., holidays, but if the employee works, they still get paid -- sometimes double time? (Which means they have earned 3xs their normal salary for that day)?

* Employers who feel they must allow abuses like accumulating sick leave because otherwise, employees will have crappy attendance records? Ain't that cured by the words "you're fired"? I was amazed -- and pissed off -- at the suggestion that without a HUGE incentive, safety forces will stay at home sick if they chip a nail.

* Paying such rich benefits not only to safety workers, but also to the office staff at city hall, building inspectors, etc.? There are differences, of course, but the same problems arise as to non-safety workers.

* I want to point out again: when an employee abuses the system and gets an end-of-career bump, he also bumps his ENTIRE pension benefit pay out for life. Does that seem reasonable to anyone here?

I dunno if I agree that these accrued benefits cannot be evaded, even if they bankrupt the city. I would like to see a linkiepoo to some court decisions, and review them -- Cincinnati has been driven into insolvency by these abuses ALONE. Not by total labor costs -- but just by bumps at the point when an employee retires. I wonder if those would be "new facts" that would allow the city to evade these payments?

 

[Big Fitz]

And for those who don't believe we're not going to go bankrupt as a nation...

Debt now equals total U.S. economy - Washington Times

Some quotes:

President Obama projects that the gross federal debt will top $15 trillion this year, officially equalling the size of the entire U.S. economy, and will jump to nearly $21 trillion in five years’ time.

Mr. Obama‘s budget said 2011 will see the biggest one-year jump in debt in history, or nearly $2 trillion in a single year.

We cannot sustain this. The fed will have to have it's throat slit, hundreds of programs terminated or massive universal budget cuts of over 40-60% in every department and aspect of government.

When this collapses, where will your city go to pay the pensions of workers that are overpayed, over compensated and underperforming?

The nation is essentially going to be foreclosed on, economically. This is the kind of stuff that spawns wars and revolutions. What will you do when your city cannot afford to pay plows to clear your streets, or to even fix water mains and power lines? What will you do when the teachers cannot be paid anymore? What will you do when the begging to the state and federal government come up empty because even they are closing down departments to save money?

This is what we have come to. It will not be pretty, and apparently won't be stopped because nobody wants to do the right thing before it's too late.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Blablablablabla.

None of that chest puffing refutes the fact that next to nobody who works out in the real world gets to sandbag their sick and vacation days for cash. Your petty opinion that "anyone can pound a nail" is completely irrelevant.

But an overinflated sense of entitlement is pretty much expected from liberoidals and AFSCME paper shuffler types, so I'm hardly surprised.

You're off point as usual but given your opinions are formed by envy and ignorance such is not unexpected. Not all government employees have the benefits of safety employees. Policy makers know better, local, state and special districts hire nail pounders too, and their salaries and bennies are structured by union contracts.
All of which suggests to me you can't even meet the standards set by the private sector.

 

[Madeline]

The problem of end-of-career bumps is akin to the whole underfunded pension problem. When cities were strapped for cash, they found myriad ways to promise "someday we'll pay you more". We need reforms, mebbe at the federal level, to prevent this kind of blurring the line between current salary and deferred compensation.

If it takes $100,000 a year to keep a firefighter on the payroll (color me smelling bullshit here), then cities should be forced to pay that $100,000 in the year that firefighter works.,..not $60,000 now and another $40,000 in twenty years. These bullshit accounting games have gotten the cities and states into the mess they're in, and must stop.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Divide and conquer; this thread is a product of a policy by the power elite of our nation.

Pitting working men and women against working men and women is a tactic used by the power elite to keep us divided so the greater amount of wealth produced by this nation remains in the pockets of the top 2% of our citizens.

 

[Big Fitz]

The problem of end-of-career bumps is akin to the whole underfunded pension problem. When cities were strapped for cash, they found myriad ways to promise "someday we'll pay you more". We need reforms, mebbe at the federal level, to prevent this kind of blurring the line between current salary and deferred compensation.

If it takes $100,000 a year to keep a firefighter on the payroll (color me smelling bullshit here), then cities should be forced to pay that $100,000 in the year that firefighter works.,..not $60,000 now and another $40,000 in twenty years. These bullshit accounting games have gotten the cities and states into the mess they're in, and must stop.

They won't till the votes can no longer be bought. That's the sad truth of it.

The worst part is that default/bankruptcy will take from those receiving ANY pension what so ever, even if they did not 'cheat the system' like too many have.

 

[westwall]

Divide and conquer; this thread is a product of a policy by the power elite of our nation.

Pitting working men and women against working men and women is a tactic used by the power elite to keep us divided so the greater amount of wealth produced by this nation remains in the pockets of the top 2% of our citizens.

Tell that to the people of San Francisco who were getting ready to start lynching bus drivers who were threatening to go on strike yet again. Then the people found out what the lazy bastards were making and the bus drivers all of a sudden had a problem, anotoriously pro union town was turning on them. You people are vastly overpaid for what you do for the most part. Police and paramedics I think earn every penny thay make.
The rest of you? No way, you're leeches and the people are figuring it out and you will begin to lose your benny's as the people revolt against your sweetheart deals. Enjoy it while you can.

 

[Wry Catcher]

The problem of end-of-career bumps is akin to the whole underfunded pension problem. When cities were strapped for cash, they found myriad ways to promise "someday we'll pay you more". We need reforms, mebbe at the federal level, to prevent this kind of blurring the line between current salary and deferred compensation.

If it takes $100,000 a year to keep a firefighter on the payroll (color me smelling bullshit here), then cities should be forced to pay that $100,000 in the year that firefighter works.,..not $60,000 now and another $40,000 in twenty years. These bullshit accounting games have gotten the cities and states into the mess they're in, and must stop.

Of course it's not sustainable, and new hires are not offered the same salaries and benefits which my generation received. Many of us were offered more lucrative jobs during the years we earned less than some of our friends and neighbors. Some left for the private sector and got nice raises and 401k retirements - most are still working today as are some of my friends who relied on the stock market and home equity for their golden years. I'm not. I don't regret it nor do I feel guilty for providing for my family.

Envy is one of the deadly sins, and powerful forces have made an effort to put pensions on the radar creating the divisive rhetoric which pits worker against worker. Not only government employees but members of labor unions are being attacked; and the power elite, the plutocrats, are shielding themselves from this debate and laughing as they 'go' to the banks in the Cayman Islands or Switzerland.