Rejecting the Gov’s Good Idea
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 By Marc KilmerAccording to Gongwer News Service, a bipartisan group of legislators has rejected Governor Strickland’s idea to help balance the budget by reducing the amount the state pays into the public employee retirement system:
A Strickland administration proposal to help balance the budget by reducing retirement contributions for state workers has been shelved, leading lawmakers said Wednesday.
Rep. Todd Book (D-Portsmouth) and Sen. Keith Faber (R-Celina) both said Gov. Ted Strickland’s plan to cut employer contributions from 14% to 8% over the biennium has been rejected by lawmakers.
The governor is right on this issue and the Republicans and Democrats in the General Assembly are wrong. The state is facing a huge deficit and this is a sensible idea to help curb it. In fact, it may be time for the state to begin looking at how generous its pension system is for retirees. Reform could end up saving the state’s taxpayers a significant amount of money in future years.
Jon Entine had a great article in Reason magazine earlier this year about the looming government pension fund crisis.
Tags: budget, Governor Strickland, pensions
July 8th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
This is a bad idea because: Strickland’s proposal is not a cut, it is a loan. After two years, the contributions would return to 14%, and in addition, the 6% not paid over the next two years would be paid back with interest. In other words, the money has to be made up in future budgets by future taxpayers. And… P.S. It is against the Ohio Constitution (so highly exalted elsewhere in the BI web site) to encumber future budgets. That is why all state bond issues have to go before the voters as constitutional issues.
Maybe you don’t like the state employee pensions, and maybe a discussion about them is in order. However, this proposal has nothing to do with that.
July 8th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
[...] Governor Ted Strickland is right. [...]
July 9th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I think Strickland has a good idea and I get blasted by someone calling themselves a liberal for doing so! I’ve learned my lesson — the governor will get no more support from me.
All kidding aside, token liberal raises some good points about this plan. I’ll look more into the constitutional aspects of it, although the way I read it there would be a moral obligation to pay back the money although not a legal one (because, as TL points out, that’s against the Constitution).
July 9th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Really! No good deed goes unpunished!