It would require up to a 50% payroll tax to pay for pension commietments.
Ron Seeling, the CalPERS chief actuary, said at a confrence in Sacramento:
I don't want to sugarcoat anything. We are facing decades without significant turnarounds in assets, decades of -- what I, my personal words,nobody else's -- unsustainable pension costs of between 25 percentof pay for a miscellaneous plan and 40 to 50 percent of pay for asafety plan (police and firefighters) ... unsustainable pensioncosts. We've got to find some other solutions."I actually think it is sustainable," said Terry Brennand of the Service Employees International Union. He said the basic problem is investment losses, not high benefit levels.
Is there a Federal bailout in the future?
Put yourself in the position of those making decisions. The only rational approach is to let the system collapse. After a sufficient period of living in cardboard boxes and hijacking trucks carrying cows, folks will be glad to accept poverty. This is what happened in Argentina, and it's doubtful that Americans have any more gumption than they do.
ReplyDelete