Any honest actuary, any honest observer, will say the same thing — public services are about to be destroyed by the many years of work-free living older generations have promised themselves but decided younger generations, who will be much poorer, will have to pay for. And the debts older generations are leaving behind. On the public employee pension front, you can read about it in Governing magazine, a leading observer of public service, where a pension analyst proposes an alternative to complete collapse. One that might be implemented in places other than New York State. Here, the state legislature is determined to take every bit of our future before passing or leaving.
Why don't some of New York's publications ask Mr. Miller of Governing or New Jersey's John Bury for an honest analysis of New York's pension situtation? Be sure to mention the following because it is not what they are used to seeing elsewhere.
Most older and retired NY public employees have contributed little or nothing to their pensions.
The pensioners get a 1 percent cost of living increase every year even when prices (and the wages of taxpayers) are falling.
Public employee pension income is tax free for state income taxes at any age; private sector workers get a $20,000 retirement income exclusion, but only after age 65. New York City also has a local income tax. Retired public employees don't pay that either.
Despite population stagnation, local governments in the portion of New York State outside New York City have added well more than 100,000 employees in recent years. After five years, they are entitled to retiree health care beginning at an early age, soon after to pensions. When those localities go broke, that non-negotiable cost will be shifted to the state, and New York City.
One of the big demands the unions have had n recent years is the ability to get retiree health insurance in the other places they want to move away to, places with lower taxes and better public services.
In order to pay for pension enhancements, New York State and New York City have repeatedly cut pay and benefits for new hires, in cycles going back to the 1970s. The unions then argue that all public employees, including those benefitting from the enhancements and not affected by the pay and benefit cuts, have a right to do a lousy job.
New York's state and local taxes were the highest, as a percent of their residents' income, in the country going into the recession.
Bury calls the three candidates for Governor of New Jersey “three blind twits” when it comes to the state’s upcoming bankruptcy. What would he call New York’s so-called leaders, state or city? They are still making promises. They should be telling us what the future will be, and celebrating their victory over it.
I’ve been watching the PBS series on the National Parks, and had an idea. I wonder if Generation Greed will sell the National parks, the Adirondaks, and Central Park to the Arabs, Chinese and Russians to finance a few more years of living in the manner to which they have become accustomed? The agreement could postpone development for twenty years, and make it impermissible to charge those born before 1955 for access. Because after 20 years what happens won’t matter anyway, will it? As Randi Weingarten would say, it would be “a win for everyone” and “a win for children.”