A Personal Post on Pension Reform

I work for a governmental entity. I have for over 20 years. During that time I have made and saved hundreds of millions of dollars. I did not come to the government for security, it was my career choice and that is why I took the courses I did in school.

Over the course of my career I have had numerous opportunities to leave the government and make more money in private industry and make more money, I chose to stay. I am well paid and have few complaints about that. When my life came apart I almost left. I almost quit to become a consultant. I had a half million dollars in contracts in under 30 minutes and wasn't trying to get any.

The people who know me, know this to be true, the people who do not probably cannot believe it. It is what it is. Most people that work for government cannot just take a job on the outside and make four times as much. I know this. They stay because of their pensions and benefits.

Part of the reason I stayed was because of my pension. In five years I can begin to draw my pension and retire. Only one problem, half goes to the ex. It would be better for me to leave, make more and start a 401k or invest in stock. I have many options. Best case scenario would be for me to go into consulting and create a new self made pension. I plan on staying for a bit, as long as my health is manageable.

When I went into government, I was told that I would get a specific benefit, a pension calculated and guaranteed. I was told the government would put aside a specific amount each year. I didn't, few did. They made the promises; but, when times were good counted on making large returns on the pension investments. Markets go up and down, the bets failed eventually.

Nationwide government pensions are under scrutiny. Few, very few, governments put the money in the pension funds that they promised and instead turned to riskier and riskier investments. Government pension funds were then also used for political ends. Government Pensions invested in things that the government wanted to achieve, in exchange the government allowed them to do insider trading, constructively.

The Federal government turned a blind eye to all of what was happening as long as the pensions invested in things that the fed wanted to see grow. A problem occurred, a culture of corruption was created. That culture led to graft and bribery. Now we have the outcome, failed government pension systems nationwide.

Because of the underfunding of the pensions, the failure of governments to put in the amount needed at the time, the pensions will fail. If the governments were to make up for what they did not pay at the time, they will be unable to pay their present employees. That is the reality we are facing.

As a consequence of the above, we are now faced with a choice. We can, as a society, not provide the promised payments we made for service done, we can put the burden on future government employees or find a hybrid solution. Doubling taxes to pay for the promises made to government employees, including me, is not a viable solution in this economy.

I have been cheated. I and many others have already given our time, spent our careers in government service in exchange for a promise. That promise is now a lie. I gave up making more, making different choices based on a societal promise. I am being asked to screw future employees or accept that I was cheated and find an alternate situation.

I cannot get back the career options, choices of the past two plus decades, I cannot redo my life. I cannot have married someone different. Government employees are being asked to make the decision about their pensions. They are being asked to condemn the future employees to working 40 years, rather than 30, or insist upon tax increases.

Private company employees are in a similar situation. Social Security is also $1 trillion underfunded. The government did not put the money aside to pay for social security. That means privately employed people are being asked to pay for public pensions or their own. Keep your promises and go without or fail to meet your promises and take care of yourself.

The question is how we solve these problems. It will determine the type of society we create in the future. If we choose to cheat future employees, they will steal you blind, private and public. It is not a solution you will like and future employees will not help retiring ones if that is our societal answer.

ON AVERAGE, people are living longer. That does mean that we will have to change the pension systems because of the actuarial tables. It does not mean that we have to make upcoming employees pay for our pensions. Rather than allowing ourselves to be conquered and divided, what if we all compromised. I will gladly allow the next ten years of my pension to be based on a new formula if it will allow the new employees to only work an extra five years rather than 10+. I will not ask taxpayers, I pay them also, to not have services in order to meet the promises they made to me completely.

Everything I have said applies to Social Security, which I do not recieve but have paid into, and how we will deal with people on the private side. Will you saddle your children with working an extra ten years to get what you were promised?