Future retirement plans

Regarding “Right’s 401(k) push a big risk for employees” (Page A19, Wednesday), this article should have said, “No 401(k) push a big risk for taxpayers.”

The traditional pension plan was designed to pay retirees at age 65 for five to 10 years before they died. That retirement lifespan has now been extended to 25-30 years.

The odds of one member of a couple, 65 years old today, living past 90 is 48 percent. That means the pension or the taxpayer has to put in a lot more money to cover that liability. Private corporations realized that a decade ago. Now, only public plans still have defined-benefit pension plans despite the massively increased cost of the plans. Yes, a 401(k) plan is inferior to a pension, but it does not subject taxpayers to unlimited increasingly large payments.

Max Patterson suggests we concentrate on economic growth opportunities. All I hear is that the right’s 3 percent GDP growth assumption is absurd. Perhaps it is due to all the regulations that stifles growth, but this should not be a right or left argument. It is a mathematics argument.

Two percent bond returns and 7 percent stock returns will average to 5 percent, which will make most pension plans insolvent in 10-20 years, unless taxes are raised massively. This will be the financial crisis of the future.

David Kroon, Houston