ziggy29
Moderator Emeritus
Fair enough, but often times when pensions come "under attack," it's not made clear whether one is really looking to take away from someone who is already "in" for one or if one is merely talking about modifying the rules for future government employees.Wow, this is an easy argument:
Work for the government? Defend its pension system.
Don't work for the government? Not crazy about its pension system.
Many times it sounds like people are advocating the former -- which leads to justifiable defensiveness among those currently working toward a promised government pension. If you've put in (say) 15 years and you have passed on more potentially lucrative positions in the private sector along the way because of your pension, you should be hopping mad if someone wants to take it away. And the defensive remarks could be fairly caustic -- after all, it is their meal ticket they feel is in danger, why wouldn't they be? I would, most likely -- and that just leads to a blow up. Does no one any good.
That's why I've always tried to make it very clear that I 100% oppose any efforts to take anything away from anyone who is already "in the system," so to speak, and that any reforms should only apply to new hires in the future. I believe that as the "retirement gap" appears to grow, and the more taxpayer resentment grows with respect to higher taxes to protect pensions they don't get, the more we need to consider changing the rules where it makes sense to do so. I don't believe all government jobs need to be extremely dependent on retention. For those that are, maintaining pensions more or less as is could make sense (but perhaps with lower pay than those who don't get them).
But first, IMO, to have a good discussion about it, to put at least some of it on the table, some of the defensiveness of the pension "haves" and the resentment of the pension "have nots" needs to be sidelined and at least discuss something midway: changing the rules for *future* new hires.
I don't have a perfect answer. I am opposed to breaking existing promises. But I also don't believe the status quo is sustainable and it's increasingly not a fair deal for the "have not" taxpayers -- even more so in states and local governments than the feds.