Unfortunately, most of those states and municipalities know they have a friend in the POTUS, who in Monty Hall fashion, will be saying, "Come on down!"

You union people had better listen to Mr. Sowell. The "We don't have the money, End of discussion" is coming to a state, city and town near you!. I'd develop a second career if I were you.

Those who are at or near retirement. The Ponzi scheme is about to end. I know your not happy about it. My guess is there will be a lot of noise and broken glass before you get the message. But the above message is coming. Count on it!

It's a sad fact, that some of most important decisions made are moved by sloganeering and sound-bites.

To hell with thoughtful, serious discussion and research!

I know a few union people and their attitude is "tough", the bargaining unit got us this, it's fair for ME, too bad. Most are near retirement so cuts, bankruptcies won't affect them. The whole "me first, too bad about you" mentality drives union greed.

What's so hard to understand???? You can't taken in $1 and spend $3. End of story.

Hmmm, We were told that we had a defined benefit retirement package. I paid 20% of my salary into the db as well as FICA and Medicare and for 35 years I didn't know if I would live long enough to collect it. Carrying a badge and gun for 35 years certainly had it's moments.

But, I can only account for the program that they had at my department in Michigan...perhaps the other Law Enforcement and Fire Fighter programs don't require their participants to pay....

Starrman69: The money you put in all those years ended up in the general fund to pay for other state expenses. An IOU was put in its place. We've all been screwed on SS and Medicare. The fact remains.

We don't have the money. Unless your OK with China loans. China won't have to invade America. Just foreclose.

This is a very good reason to just say no to raising the debt ceiling as well.

Thomas, you certainly are one of the few courageous in America. A right thinking person has to love the way your mind works! Those who are bankrupted in their thinking need to get on the right side before all America is drowned in red ink! Did not St. Paul say that if you want to eat, you must work?

I’m compelled to challenge the assertion: “…armies of government employees retire in their fifties, to live for decades on pensions larger than they were making when they were working…” rings grossly inaccurate and misleading to this veteran.

20 years as Soldier destined best job available was Fed Gov. At 67, after 25 more years as Fed, perhaps I will acquire (assuming no reductions): mil retire: ~20%; Fed retire: (est.) ~25%; Social Security: (est.) ~25%; total: ~70% of current income. Compounding matters, for political expediency, the various administrations under which I served, have repeatedly delayed or halted promised, planned, expected and hard merited promotions and raises to account for inflation. This has reduced the real dollar amount. All despite constant requirement to increase and expand skills out-of-pocket (>90 post Baccalaureate credits) and serving in the department most frequently decried for “excesses” in salaries and benefits.

And in case some think military or feds get a “tax” break: some states exempt military income, but not where I must earn my living. Else: zero, nada, null, zilch. Finally, fed civilians and military have suffered fed health care for decades. Not exactly same as current planned health care, but close enough to know our nation will not be best served.

Not complaining. Current plans will be tight, but adequate (despite children still in house due to late life births due to postponing to mitigate hardships of military life). Serving my country helps satisfy my profound sense of reciprocity (it’s an honor and privilege). But if assertions like Mr. Sowell’s is repeated often and loud enough, politicians will see expediency in reducing this military veteran’s and civil servant’s hard won retirement.

MAJ USA Ret,

Major,

With great respect and thankfulness for your service, I submit that your letter just highlights Dr. Sowell's point. If your benefit package was not excessive and we are still unable to afford it to the point of the impending bankruptcy of our beloved USA, it says that even at 70% of your current salary THE SYSTEM IS UNSUSTAINABLE. Being non military and non federal employee as a self employed individual, SS will not make up 70% of my current income.... consider yourself blessed. This whole situation begs for a major discussion in our country as to what is the responsibility of the government and what is the responsibility of the individual citizen. I am pretty confident I know what our founders thought.... a bunch of ill-equipped farmers and merchants stood down the world superpower of that era in the name of individual liberty. As for the current group of political leaders.... nausea is the operative word at the mere thought of the total lack of liberty they have planned for our children and grandchildren.

Good luck to you sir, and thanks again for your military service.

Re: MAJ USA Ret.

Maj, I couldn't agree with you more.

I hear many say these days that we shouldn't even be paid to retire at 20+ years of active military service, that our health care rates should go up comparable to civilians, that we might be over-paid, and the like.

I too am in the Government Run health care system and have been since I retired 10 years ago. I am not completely thrilled with the VA system, but it does function only just. Although, I would imagine civilians would have a fit having to wait 3 to 4 months to see an eye doctor or other, I have come to expect it.

Even with Tri-Care, we must pay money in, and yet it still isn't near a quality as most civilian health care plans that are much better since many providers don't accept Tri-Care.

But I would lay out just one, only one and I have numerous more, arguments for those who say we get too much. Civilians, if they worked their whole lives since early adulthood, had a 20+ year jump on us GI's as far as establishing their careers, set up their roots and homesteads, finding and locating a suitable health plan, and setting up, if wise, a conservative, smart retirement account for their futures.

We as GI’s did not have most of those opportunities being immersed and engaged in a totally different system and way of life.

So I say to those who complain about the entire above, serve as we did or shut up about the services or benefits retired and disabled veterans are receiving. And leave our promised benefits alone.

Beyond the patriotism, who else in their right minds would serve 20 years, at the whim of the US Government, away from family, friends, hometowns, in an overseas location, in remote areas, in war zones, sleeping in tents, near where the local populations hate Americans and want to kill us, eating MRE's, and the like, if a ‘fair’ benefits package did not come along with those sacrifices and services to our country.

Before they ever cut our GI’s hard-earned, promised benefits, they better stop the welfare state, halt all services and monies to illegal immigrants, stop sending billions of dollars to despotic governments overseas, eliminate the majority of the social welfare programs that encourage baby making, and like socialist crap that we have seen from this and previous liberal governments.

God Bless our GI’s and God Bless the United States of America!!!

SMSgt, USAF Ret.

I am a State Trooper who works the road (not a desk). I agree the system needs a SERIOUS overhaul. I live in Vermont and the state government is FAR TOO BIG. I will say this though. I will retire from being a cop at 50 with 21 years on the job, I was in the military prior to that. There is a huge difference between a beaurocrat sitting behind a desk for 21 years and a cop on the road for 21 years. Frankly, if I wasnt a Trooper I would not be a public sector worker. I will leave state service and feel as though I earned every cent of my pension. There is no doubt that the pension system needs overhaul and I do not think the current structure can be continued. We are lucky in Vermont that our system is pretty healthy compared to other states.

01/18/11

TO AlAN SIMPSON and the rest of you CONGRESSIONAL

and SENTORIAL THIEVING HACKS,the only REASON you

THIEVES want to raise DEFICIT CEILING and BURDEN

our GRAND and GREAT GRAND CHILDREN to TRY and PAY

OFF your MISERLY GREED,WHILE MAINTAINING your

thieving process.It DOESN'T SAY MUCH for us not

able to FIND MEN like our FOUNDERS.

Re: SP548

Thanks for your service to American citizens!

I know what you mean about desk work, it is tiresome. I, like you, prefer to work in the trenches, with the troops, or for the people.

The pension system that needs an overhaul is the ones proliferated and exaggerated by the all-too-powerful monstrous unions. I would say a United Service Autoworker's retired pay, equal to same times 'served' is likely 3 to 5 times mine or yours.

There are numerous other examples of self-serving monstrosities like some states educators unions retirements dictated by the educators themselves.

That is where they need to start, those extravagant, self-serving, endlessly greedy unions who only want more, and more and more of our and others money. Reasonability in retirement is OK, but endless and increasing greed, not.

My belief, Large Unions = Communists

MAJ USA First off, thank you for your service, seriously. But I am struck by your comments about the sacrifices you made to be in the military. Were those sacrifices for "honor and duty" or the promise of a pension at the end of your 20 years of "service?"

SP548 Thanks you for your military service You typify the exact attitude that those of us not in "public service" are tired of. I will have to work the rest of my life for two reasons, one I work in a private that does not pay nearly enough for me to save for retirement and the school has no retirement plan, and the second is so that I can keep paying taxes so all of you "public servants" can keep being served! Enjoy your retirement!

"Suspect in Custody After 2 Students Shot at California High School" Fox News.Com

Do you suppose this shooter decided to do this after watching a Rachel Maddow or Keith Olberman segment, or perhaps he remembered the kill Bush t-shirts and other liberal insults from left media and went after conservative students?

Now wouldn't using such an excuse, or assigning balme to others, be just pathetic?

Perhaps we should look into whether the shooter is a democrat, or whether his parents are liberals, and strectch to connect a bunches of dots to blame the liberals and their media outlets.

Only Cops, Firefighers and Military should have pensions.

The blame game is over folks!

Some good people are getting hurt because of the irresponsibilty of our government leaders. i don't know if it's greed or ignorance. I don't care anymore. I just want it to stop. We don't have the money should be our Mantra. We must make them understand the seriousness of our financial situation and get them to retreat from this debt hole we are in

.For us and our children's,children's, children.

As always, Thomas Sowell gets it - especially in his last half dozen paragraphs or so. My mother used to accuse Hubert Humphrey of buying her generation's votes with my generation's money. And Hubert was responsible by today's standards.

Maj(ret) and SP548. I too am retired military and work as a Federal Civil Servant. I did not consider Prof. Sowell's article to be a big "dig" at the military or Federal pensions - because they are not any where near as excessive as many state/county/city government pensions can be.

The Federal Government went to a FERS system (with 1% per year of your final high 3 years - BASE pay only) - compared to the CSRS (that had about 2% per year.)

Contrast that with California, where a state worker might get 3% per year of the final year - INCLUDING overtime/sell back of unused leave, etc. - so that they really can get a retirement salary that is higher than their base pay at retirement. That is truly unaffordable - as Prof. Sowell indicated!

With all due respect to the honor and sacrifice of those who proudly served in our military, Dr. Sowell is not talking about those who retire on military pensions. First of all, those pensions aren't big. Nobody ever got rich off a military pension.

What we're talking about here is the municipal, state and federal employee pension systems that increasingly promise extravagant pensions to public sector employees with no means of actually paying for those liabilities. Let's make that as clear as we can. Cities, states and the Fed have taken on legally binding financial obligations that they have no way to meet. That, my friends, is the very definition of bankruptcy.

I can appreciate the desire to defend one's hard-earned pension for military service, but that's not what's at issue here at all. What is at issue is police, firemen, teachers, municipal workers, state bureaucratic employees, and federal bureaucratic workers. The administrative pensions, if people actually saw the numbers, would outrage every American. Even the police and firemen in many cities and states receive pensions so large that they simply cannot be sustained beyond one or possibly two generations.

Why? Because pensions work by paying retirees with money taken from those still working. It's a nice system, as long as it's handled intelligently and responsibly. Instead, what we've got now is union contracts for public sector works (I'm pretty sure the military isn't a union shop LOL) that award large pensions that in many cases either meet or exceed the working salaries of those who retire. In other words, upon retirement you can collect a monthly pension that's actually bigger than you were paid for working. Nice gig if you can get it, but that money doesn't just fall out of a tree. It has to come from SOMEWHERE. Generally it comes from those who belong to that union who are still working. Except in order to pay these exorbitant pensions, it takes something like 15 firemen to pay the bill for ONE retiree. You can get away with that scheme for a while, but pretty soon you've got hundreds of retirees -- and you don't have tens of thousands of firemen in your city to pay for them.

Ditto with police, teachers and others. The obligations simply cost more than the amount of money that exists to pay for them. It's that simple. Talk of entitlement and service and loyalty and union rhetoric won't make that money magically appear. So now, the same knuckleheads -- union leaders and politicians -- who created this mess are talking up the option of a government bailout.

The problem is, we aren't talking about one city now. Or even one state. It's DOZENS of cities, if not hundreds. It's at least 10 states that will be looking for a bailout, starting with CA and NY, with MI and MA not far behind. The USA simply does not have the money -- the umpteen trillion dollars it would take -- to bail out all that failure.

And guess what? Even if we go completely insane and actually cave in to these bailout demands, all that money will be wasted anyway. Because it won't solve the problem. It will simply postpone for a short while the inevitable day when the same cities and states will totter on the brink of bankruptcy again, and for the exact same reasons. Except then we'll be trillions of dollars poorer.

Last summer I ran into a tourist from Philly, a Fireman, who literally BRAGGED about how good he was going to have it--retire after 20 years with a 'pension' of FULL-PAY! The guy was going to be maybe 43 years old!

As for me, I'm a talented engineer who gambled on a couple of wives and lost, and invested $130k in different businesses ventures (and LOST!), and helped by personal sacrifice to save a couple of businesses (125 employees "owe me" their livelihood).

Now, I look to 'Work Until I Drop' since I really can't afford to "retire"--unless I can find a rich next-wife! ...or my current one hits the lottery.....

I find the games being played in NY state just disgusting, and we are looking at TREMENDOUS increases in Property Tax to support these 'defined-benefit retirements', into which little to NOTHING was contributed by the state, county, town, or school-system employees.

I am all-for NY state to go bankrupt, and if we talk-it-up, the bankers will quit lending, and thereby accelerate the process!

I'm so sick and tired of hearing about the huge and wildly inflated government pensions that we federal employees are getting. The second quote on today's Patriot Post is from Thomas Sowell, well respected all-around good guy and defender of good stuff but sorely misled. The quote is "Letting armies of government employees retire in their fifties, to live for decades on pensions larger than they were making when they were working, ..." just as if it were true.

Here is the formula. Take the average of your highest 3 year's pay, multiply by .011 if you're over 62 years old, then multiply by hte number of years you've worked for the government. If you're between 60 and 62 the .011 factor becomes .010. If you're under 60 more offsets apply, basically 5% for each year under 50. If you don't think this is correct go to the OPM web site and learn.

So for a 30 year senior technical person, say at the top of the NRC or NASA engineering staff, $140K x .011 x 30 years = $46200. For 20 years it's $30800. How are either of those numbers more than $140,000? Yes, we get Social Security, but we paid into it. That will add another $12K, maxing out the 30 year guy at $58,000 - still well less than $140,000.

This is a very generous pension, and the folks who qualify for this are fortunate indeed. However for those making $70,000 the numbers will be $23,000 and $15400. Try taking that into your 70's, 80's and beyond.

To make equal to what you made on the job, let's see. With $12K for SS to make up $58K to match the $70K salary you would have to work 75 years. For the NRC guy to match $140K it's 83 years. Mr Sowell, like many in Congress and occasionally in the White House you have failed to do the math.

I spent 26 years in the Air Force, and enjoy my retirement. I don't "enjoy" the pain that service has left me with, but the VA disability helps me get along. I have a good feeling about myself, knowing I EARNED that retirement by always doing my best to keep this nation free. I don't think Dr. Sowell's remarks are about me or my fellow veterans.

There are some places where there is excessive retirement. How is it that a one-term Representative gets a "retirement"? Being president is a hellacious job, and deserves a retirement, but both Representatives and Senators get far too much for far too little actual work. I think retiring at age 55 from "civil service", either at the local, state or federal level, has to end. I also think "public service unions" are a farce, and need to be eliminated. People should serve the public "at the convenience of the public", not at the convenience of some collection of labor "leaders". This is especially true of "teachers' unions". The only "advantage" I can see to unionization is to raise costs and make it even harder to get rid of deadwood.