PensionTsunami's primary focus is on California's public employee pension crisis, but we also monitor news in other states, keep an eye on the world of corporate pensions, and follow developments in Social Security since it is taxpayers who will ultimately be responsible for making up deficits incurred by any of them. We also try to monitor international trends. The editor of PensionTsunami.com is Jack Dean (JackDean-at-PensionTsunami-dot-com). Originally founded in 2005 under the auspices of the Fullerton Association of Concerned Taxpayers, the site became a project of the California Public Policy Center in 2010.
As cities across the nation increasingly become mired in financial crises due to public employee pensions and health care costs, debt and overspending, PBS correspondent Spencer Michels profiles one city making efforts to avoid bankruptcy: Stockton, California:
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To read the accompanying news story on the WPRI-TV website, please click here.
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Providence Mayor Angel Taveras made a direct pitch yesterday to more than 800 city retirees to accept reduced pensions and less generous health care coverage to help the city avoid a bankruptcy filing:
By Daniel Pellissier
In a transparent attempt to divert attention from billion-dollar losses and unfunded liabilities that will last two generations, CalPERS released its own study of the fund’s economic impact trying to take credit for $26 billion in economic activity generated by its generous retirement benefits. Of course, the economic impact would be the same if General Motors, Boeing or IBM had made those same retirement payments out of a $230 billion fund, so there is no credit to be earned for merely sending out checks.
The CalPERS-sponsored study does not detail how most of the money they hand out comes from taxpayers. Across California, public employee contributions to pension costs range from nothing, up to 35%, making most of the money in the fund returns on taxpayer contributions. In addition, CalPERS is charging its member agencies higher costs to make up for severe market losses in 2008 that will take two generations of higher taxes to repay.
So while CalPERS tries to convince Californians that they are helping the economy, their increasing demands for tax dollars is draining the economy — taking money needed to fund our schools and build our roads — and giving it to 55-year-old retirees. That’s nothing to be proud about.
Daniel Pellissier is president of California Pension Reform.
By John Schwada / Fox News LA
California’s Pension Battle Gets Ugly: MyFoxLA.com
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Everywhere you turn these days, your public sector unions are hard at work, protesting cutbacks to public sector unions. Andrew Klavan of City Journal exposes the charming charm of your unionized civil servants:
Will this Alabama town’s bankrupt pension fund have nationwide consequences? The state’s governor, Bob Riley, comments on Fox News:
