From 1992 to 2009 I served on the Civil Service Commission in my city. We set the rules for police and fire department employment, promotion, discipline, and removal. One rule that had been in effect for many years (prior to my service) said that unused sick/personal leave could accumulate. This meant that after 20 or more years of service an employee could have many months worth of sick/personal leave built up that he/she could use to in effect accelerate retirement (not show up for work) and still get paid.
The city realized this was costing them lots of money to pay overtime for police/fire fighters to cover for employees coasting into retirement early and they asked us to change the rule effective immediately. The city would "buy" some of the accumulated leave time from each officer/fire fighter, but not all his accumulated time.
Problem was, this was an enticement when it came to recruiting new employees and was part of their original terms of employment. In my mind, to disavow that promise later would be wrong (and maybe illegal). We voted to change the rule for any NEW hires, but to honor our word to our existing officers/fire fighters.
Isn't this essentially what is happening now with our Medicare and Social Security systems? We were told (not asked) that we would pay in X% from our pay and we would have Y benefits at the time of our retirement. Now the government realizes it's costing them big bucks to do this and they want to back peddle.
How is this right? A deal is a deal. No?
The government has already postponed retirement for most of us by a year or two, and now they're talking about amending things further. They win, we lose. If they want to have a two-tier system from this day forward, fine, but to change the rules in the middle of the game....
Is congress going to cut back THEIR (extremely liberal) retirement package? Are they going to unilaterally cut back the retirement terms of current and former government employees (one of their most favored constituencies)?
You put something on layaway at a department store, pay on it for months, then when paid in full go to pick up your purchase and are told they're changing the terms....they're only going to deliver to you the basic model, not the super deluxe model you were promised. Would you say anything or would you push back?
They call Medicare and Social Security "entitlements", which in popular modern vernacular implies "I didn't do anything to deserve it, but I'm entitled to it anyway." Nothing could be further from the truth. I paid for mine, and I have the receipts to prove it.
IMO, we taxpayers have held up our end of the deal, now it's time for the government to hold up their end. As it is, they're holding up their end all right, and saying, "Kiss it!"
Counterpoint anyone?
S
The counterpoint is the money to pay for it has to come from somewhere, which means higher taxes. Considering how hard it was to get Congress to raise taxes on rich people by a piddly 4%, I don't see that as very likely.
ReplyDeleteThe thing about Social Security is that the system was designed as a big pyramid scheme. That worked fine except now "Baby Boomers" are hitting retirement age and didn't have enough kids to pay for their Social Security. You should read "Boomsday" by Christopher Buckley. It's a funny look at the looming disaster that is Social Security. (It's fiction not non-fiction incidentally.)
All true PT. But shouldn't the government actuaries seen the Baby Boom bubble starting to build back in the early 1950's and adjusted accordingly? For them to just say, "Oops...we kinda blew it" doesn't work. I do understand the numbers. Major spending changes need to be made for sure, but to make changes retroactively on the backs of retirees doesn't seem to me to be fair. Social Security isn't simple discretionary spending, but was money put into a TRUST FUND for future use.
DeleteYou should get back what you put in...plus interest, but most will not and few will get back the implied interest in their SS investment. Congress will not change the payments for themselves or b\gvmt employees.
ReplyDeleteOh re the increased tax on the super rich...my bowling teammates informed me that their recent paychecks were $150 to $200 less than before the recent deal which raises the taxes only on the uber-rich. Are these guys uber-rich? Hello, bowling team...not rich. But they must be lying because I have not read anything about this in the papers or on the evening news.
Yes we all got hit in the wallet this last paycheck Joe. That's because the fiscal cliff deal kept income tax rates the same for most of us the same, but it did NOT keep the payroll tax rate the same. (This is the rate we and our employers pay on Social Security and Medicare.) It went back up to where it was before the Bush tax cuts. See, we have so damn many taxes we can't keep up with them all!
DeleteS
Only one political party out there has the nerve to refer to Social Security as an Entitlement Program, and it isn't the Democrats. The Republicans have been against Social Security from the beginning and they've created this financial mess as an excuse to do away with programs they never supported, even though these programs are supported by the American people. As Ronald Reagan said so often: Cutting Social Security will not lower our National Debt!
ReplyDeleteWe have some overzealous politicians here in Florida trying to paint unemployment benefits as an "entitlement." He went as far as to suggest that maybe people should pay it back after they get a job.
ReplyDeleteClearly he doesn't understand that it's unemployment insurance. What's he suggesting - that you pay back your insurance company after, say, a car accident once you drive your new car?
Jeez...politicians!