Experts Set the Record Straight

A growing chorus of credible voices across the political spectrum confirms that government employees’ defined benefit pensions are inherently flawed and cannot survive without drastic fundamental reform. The current government pension policy presents a systemic risk to the U.S. economy and, even under the most optimistic scenarios, will drain money from taxpayers and decimate essential government services.

What Pension Funding Tells Us

The percentage of a pension plan’s funding is usually considered as the primary indicator of the plan’s health.

That is predominantly how policymakers and the media refer to it. Consider the recent news stories about Kentucky and Iowa.

Leadership and Public Pensions

“Search all the parks in all your cities …

You’ll find no statues of committees.”

We’ve all seen it happen, in any type of organization: assign a question to a committee and too often you get delay and inadequate results.

Claiming a Pension Crisis

cri·sis noun \ˈkrī-səs\  an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs

in which a decisive change is impending; especially : one with the

distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome

 

The word “crisis” is getting a lot of airtime – but it is not related to the debt crisis, the obesity crisis, the healthcare crisis, the infrastructure crisis, or even the education crisis.

Disclosing Pensions: Public Rights, Privacy, and Financial Fraud

There is no question that it makes for good headlines to declare who is making what dollar amount in pension payments. Certainly, watchdog groups have taken advantage of doing so, or conjectured pay-out amounts to stir controversy, like Taxpayers United likes to do at press conferences.

Their position is that any funding taxpayers support should be transparent. As Dr. Tony Fargo, Indiana University Associate Professor of Journalism, told a news investigation team:  “From a public access standpoint, anything that involves the use of public money and the word secret is problematic.”