This would be the case if these pension programs would be allowed to fail if and when mismanaged or raided.

“What private sector folks (under the guise of “taxpayer concern”) are pissed about is simply that unlike companies, governments can’t go bankrupt and can’t revert their pension to the govt at reduced rates.”

Let’s be realistic here, they will try and maybe actually be bailed out by ERISA-like programs, if not by ERISA itself…and that puts the burden once again on the taxpayer, so that makes them “fair game” for debate.

“But pensions for public employees are completely different, they are compensation, pure and simple”

I agree with you here, it is compensation of a sort, deferred and promissory, but compensation nonetheless.
I would do away with all deferred pension schemes altogether and give all employees an untaxed sum for them to do with as they wish…save, invest or buy that Jet-Ski.
At the end of their career, they are presented with the tally of the amount of untaxed retirement money they have received, and if they’ve blown it all…well that’s just too damned bad. Sucks to be YOU and beat it,already!

But this pension benefit as compensation position then rather argues against your stance that public pensions should be treated as a “sacred cow”, because fundamentally you are arguing that the taxpayer has no right to determine the level of compensation of his own employees.

Good luck with that one.

I’m certain AFSCME, SEIU and Teamsters would heartily endorse this argument.

Now as to the unions, my personal feelings is that unionization should be outright banned for all levels of government employees.

The specter of competing loyalties rears it’s head there, as illustrated by Mr. Ott’s query above:

“Do you think, for example, that the county executive in Lehigh County, who has received some $75,700 in campaign contributions from union political action committees, is the best agent to drive a hard bargain with union bosses who are essentially part of his reelection campaign?”

Unions in America are a failing business model, and have been for decades, and like most other failing business models, they end up seeking rescue from a government subsidy to maintain the status quo that destroyed them, rather than reform what they do and how they do it.

In fact, it seems to have escaped every other observer of the ACORN affair that Unions are so decrepit and threadbare that one of their traditional role in elections: putting voters’ feet to hit the bricks was “outsourced” by the Democratic Party to this johnny-come-lately fly-by-night outfit.

Can you imagine ACORN being able to do it’s thing in the day of John L. Lewis’ UMW or Walter Reuther’s UAW?

It is to laugh, the cardboard cut-out that they now largely represent. The fact that they can no longer muster the muscle and had to be replaced by ragamuffin day-laborers marks a very clear waypoint on their fatal voyage of self-destruction.

I make an exception for SEIU, who fulfill a role of semi-thuggery once the stock in trade of my own old outfit, the Seafarers.

Paul Hall’s Seafarers used to earn extra “chops” by providing muscle to the ILGWU when the needle-trades workers, who were largely women, went on strike. This was done to protect the ladies on the picket line from the goons often hired by management to intimidate them.

What else are you going to do with a couple of ships’ crews worth of mugs hanging around the Brooklyn hall and waiting for a berth on a banana-boat?
It was Paul Hall’s genius to pack ‘em a box lunch and bus ‘em over to Manhattan to walk other outfit’s pickets.

“Private companies usually bend over backwards to conceal the liability until it’s already become a mortal threat.”

Under a defined-benefit pension, this may be so, but under a defined-contribution pension it’s not possible. The employer contribution is either there at the the end of the year or it isn’t, and if it isn’t, everyone takes their marbles and heads for the gangway…or the lifeboats.

At least that’s how it is now working here in the Oil Patch. The lateral communication among co-workers, current and past, is an unprecedented form of labor organization. The Unions can’t even get their foot in the door down here. Never have, and never will.

Within a week,via e-mail and cell-phone, everyone in the Gulf knows which outfit is in trouble and which outfit is hiring and paying “fat”.

A few years ago, Edison Chouest launched two brand new boats,(at 240′ LOA, small ships in reality), and could not find the crews willing to man them. Chouest has the reputation of being a “clock-watcher” outfit, and since they then paid as low as everyone else, no-one would touch ‘em.
They ended up having to increase compensation something like 75% across the board to man their ships, and this set off a bidding war for seagoing labor in that market.

Made it attractive enough for me to give “mudboatin’” a try.

But back to the issue at hand, I foresee that when the taxpayers revolt and the purges of the civil servants come, it will be the unions that will take an active hand in jettisoning those economic parasites deemed expendable to keep the larger parasite healthy on the host taxpayer.

Politicians will outsource their dirty work, and the schlubs at the end of that bag-line are the Labor bosses.

You watch and see.

But we agree on the larger point. Unions are truly evil, and in the public sector, they are rarely if ever necessary. While you cannot take away the right of employees to organize to have their interests represented, the unfortunate reality is that 100% of the time, union thugs are capitalizing on the discontent of those low in the ranks in order to profiteer off their labor. It is truly, truly disgusting. So politicians who enact legislation that makes union participation compulsory so that there will be more dues supporting democrats, they are the biggest threat, both to the govt workers who deserve compensation for their labor like everyone else, but also to the taxpayers who might be forced by politicians to compensate this labor at excessive rates.

Last, govts vary on their at-will status, pensions, and benefits. The municipal employee may not have the pension that a federal employee does, or vice versa. If you take a job at an agency funded by tax dollars right now, you are absolutely taking your chances, job security wise.

If I had one basic point here, it would be this: government pensions offered to employees are not a public benefit program, and should not be treated as a public policy issue for the taxpayers to grumble about as if it’s some kind of charity or assistance payment. Medicaid, medicare, welfare, and to a lesser extent (but still very much so) social security, these are the kinds of programs that the taxpayers must rightfully be concerned about. But pensions for public employees are completely different, they are compensation, pure and simple; sure they must be managed responsibly, and sure it’s a problem when they are not and they insert an opportunity for union wretches to profiteer at the expense of not just taxpayers but of the labor of the folks they purport to “represent”. But benefits are earned by people through their labor; when properly managed they are always funded with their money (and not taxpayers’) and they belong to them; and this is completely different than any government benefit program. What private sector folks (under the guise of “taxpayer concern”) are pissed about is simply that unlike companies, governments can’t go bankrupt and can’t revert their pension to the govt at reduced rates. Still further, at least governments acknowledge the liability of pensions in their deliberations. Private companies usually bend over backwards to conceal the liability until it’s already become a mortal threat. You simply cannot blame government workers for that, whether they are a $30k city code enforcer or a $100k high level manager.

I do have a solution, or at least a partial solution. Upon their 50th birthday, vested government workers shall be granted the option to take a $50,000 advance on their pensions, obligating themselves to work at least an additional five years (assuming the minimum retirement age is 55, adjust accordingly if it’s different). If they accept the advance, they shall incur a 10 point penalty on their pensions if they retire at 55. This penalty shall be pro-rated by 1 point per year if they work longer, disappearing entirely if the worker retires at or beyond age 65. The military implemented such a system a decade ago and called it REDUX (it was $30,000 at the 15th anniversary of enlistment/commissioning). About 9% of enlisted men and 5% of officers accepted the advance, significantly reducing the pension obligation on them. This advance shall be taxable. I expect that this advance should yield better effective returns than anything we can expect from the market (my expectation is 10-12%; the military version was 28%, but they were younger and the advance was smaller).

And you think that that state of affairs isn’t exactly what is extant in all too many communities around our nation today?

I would offer Detroit, Flint, Gary IN, Youngstown OH, and the entire state of California as examples that your future scenario arrived yesterday.
These are effectively ghost towns, (or becoming so), for business and pivate citizens, but they still have basically the same number of government employees.

Isn’t this somewhat analogous to the cockroaches getting atomic weapons and then nuking all of humanity so that they inherit the Earth?

The classic bargain that used to be the modus operandi of the Civil Service was a trade-off:

One accepted lower pay for the security of not being laid-off, excellent benefits, and near-immunity from the economic dangers of “Employment At Will”, which is the private-sector labor law of most of these United States.

Somewhere along the way, though, certain kinds of politicians and constituents accepted the meme that “losing skilled people to the Private Sector” was some kind of evil to be avoided at all costs.

This is humbug. Truly skilled people WILL be lost to whichever segment compensates them more to their liking, and there’s not much that can be done about it.

And it’s not like having a former civil servant go off and get a nicer office and a company car and greater compensation for actually producing something is the equivalent of being sent to Siberia, is it?

“But let me tell you what I think would happen in that scenario. Government tells a 20-25 year old college graduate, hey, here’s a great career, you only have to work 40 years to get a retirement benefit, and best of all, you can’t manage your own money to try to retire early.”

That’s nearly what will happen, with one small correction. The Government will force it’s employees to join a politically connected union’s bargaining unit, and then all questions of pension will be referred to the union.

I was 20 years a rank and file union member….believe me when I tell you that if pension and labor representation laws were actually enforced, we’d fill the prisons with labor bosses and their flunkies, (who in my personal experience enjoy a separate, two-tiered pension scheme as well as a better health care plan than their members).

I doubt there was a single person reading the thread other than harpo who didn’t immediately understand that you were talking about interest on savings in comment #2. It required a rare fool to respond like harpo did in #12 and then backpedal himself into appearing even more clueless in #33, but he’s obviously up to both tasks.

And harpo, rather than just respond with your usual unsupportable nonsense about the 95% charade, wait for a thread where that’d be on topic and present your case again. I’ll be happy to clean your clock a 3rd time.

Why save the money I already paid income tax on if I can’t keep the earnings?