$1400 per year Tax Hike Needed to Fund US Pensions

[93henfan]

I have no problems with changing benefits packages for new employees. If they don't like it, they can go work somewhere else. You come to expect certain things when you sign on the dotted line. I think people who already signed on that line should have their contracts honored via grandfathering. Savings will be realized through attrition. The federal government realized substantial savings moving to the FERS retirement in the 80s over the older, more expensive CSRS retirement. CSRS employees retained their contract, and most have worked their way out of the system by now. So anyway, let me keep my shit and ding the new people! That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

[GannonFan]

I have no problems with changing benefits packages for new employees. If they don't like it, they can go work somewhere else. You come to expect certain things when you sign on the dotted line. I think people who already signed on that line should have their contracts honored via grandfathering. Savings will be realized through attrition. The federal government realized substantial savings moving to the FERS retirement in the 80s over the older, more expensive CSRS retirement. CSRS employees retained their contract, and most have worked their way out of the system by now. So anyway, let me keep my **** and ding the new people! That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

I don't disagree with that to an extent - I certainly think people who have worked with a set system up to now should and deserve to have little deviations from it. The closer you are to retirement the less it should change. And really, the benefit itself (i.e. what you get from the pension) shouldn't change drastically, if at all. However, that doesn't mean that you can't be asked to pay more into it now to get the same benefit when you retire - I think that's open for discussion and obviously will be. And new hires are already being dinged and will never get the kind of pensions that people before them got - but that's not any different than what happened in the private sector 20 years ago when 401k's really came on board and pensions went away.