Pension reform gaining steam?
Are Nevada Democrats paying attention?
PENNSYLVANIA’S Democratic governor on Monday signed a bill wrapping a tourniquet on the state’s hemorrhaging public pension system. The nonpartisan Pew Charitable Trust called it “one of the most — if not the most — comprehensive and impactful reforms any state has implemented.”
Contrast that with Nevada Democrats, who have long resisted any effort to address this state’s massive pension liabilities, which are estimated to be as high as $50 billion, depending on how the figure is calculated. Instead, during the recently concluded 2017 legislative session they rallied behind a bill that would have made secret certain information about payouts to Nevada’s retired government workers.
The Keystone State will now move new state workers and public school teachers into 401(k) plans in an effort to “help shore up the underfunded pension system and shift market risk from taxpayers to employees,” the Wall Street Journal reported. Previously, Pennsylvania workers — like those in Nevada and many other states — enjoyed a defined benefit system under which they received monthly checks for life based on their salary history and years of service.
“After years of struggling to get a pension reform bill passed while watching the unfunded liability grow ever larger — and in an environment that required bipartisan support for reforms — the passage of [the bill] is something to applaud,” reason.com concluded.
Even the state’s public-sector unions had to acknowledge fiscal reality. David Fillman, executive director of the labor group that represents many Pennsylvania government workers, told the Harrisburg Patriot-news that his organization didn’t support the change, but “we’re not throwing bombs at it.”
The bill is being called a model for other states. Let’s hope Nevada Democrats are paying attention. For decades they have turned a blind eye to this issue in an effort to remain in good stead with the state’s public-sector unions, among their most significant financial benefactors. While Nevada has yet to descend as deep into the fiscal morass as high-tax havens such as Connecticut, Illinois or New Jersey, simply ignoring ever-increasing pension liabilities is woefully irresponsible and invites eventual financial collapse.
The fact that legislative Democrats thought it would be good policy to conceal pension information from the private-sector stiffs who pay the bills is disgraceful. Instead of trying to keep the facts from taxpayers about an issue that represents a long-term threat to the state’s health, perhaps leaders of the legislative majority should take a look at what Pennsylvania just accomplished and act accordingly.
Moving future state hires away from overly generous defined benefit plans and into the 401(k) plans that currently dominate the private sector would be a good place to start.
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Ms. Parker has no such limitation to her column length, yet she also truncated the mayor’s speech, omitting that Mayor Sadiq Khan went on to say London “is the safest global city in the world, if not the safest global city in the world.” But then, in September 2016, the mayor was quoted in the Evening Standard as saying terror attacks are “part and parcel of life in a big city.”
Ms Parker’s utterly wrong and false narrative, now a liberal left extremist meme, merely serves to defame our president. Some liberals say the West created modern day jihadis by our treatment of Arabs. So maybe our chattering class could consider a little more to what extent they are involved in creating President Trump’s image and try giving the man a chance.
Do any members of the media realize their incessant coverage of the president’s more controversial comments serves to create the very social environment they are bemoaning? Oh, wait, that’s the point, isn’t it? a health-care system that included the wealthy West Germans, the poorer East Germans and the Turkish imported factory workers.
They came up with a hybrid system. Everyone was covered under a basic needs plan. It was somewhat like our VA system.
For more comprehensive coverage, there were private plans of all sorts that could be purchased, which would augment the basic coverage. I believe this type of system would work in our country.