Jonathan Weiler: A Bad Assumption: Republicans Are Acting in Good Faith on Deficits. In the deck (the brief synopsis under the headline) for a front screen story this morning on proposed cuts to Head Start, the New York Times declared: "In taking on a popular, though criticized program, Republicans are seeking to send a strong message about the need for fiscal restraint.
" The extent of Republican dishonesty on deficits should have been plain long ago. Republican presidents have been running up very large deficits for thirty years. And in their more candid moments, their advisers and supporters have acknowledged the value of "strategic deficits" -- the utility of deficits as an excuse to cut programs that help the less well-off while preserving and enhancing the prerogatives of the wealthy. That's the only agenda the Republicans have pursued with consistency and dedication for three decades. State and local workers: Gone but not off the books. Whoever it was who came up with the phrase "golden years" might have had Bruce Malkenhorst Sr. in mind.
The retired city administrator of Vernon, Calif., pulls down a pension of $43,320.53 a month - or close to $520,000 a year - through the underfunded California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), which covers about half of all government workers in the state and is the nation's largest public pension administrator. Malkenhorst receives that princely stipend by virtue of having held six four-day-a-week jobs at the same time in Vernon, a speck of an industrial town just south of Los Angeles. He was Vernon's city manager, city clerk, finance director, treasurer, redevelopment agency secretary and director of light and power.
Why employee pensions aren't bankrupting states. WASHINGTON — From state legislatures to Congress to tea party rallies, a vocal backlash is rising against what are perceived as too-generous retirement benefits for state and local government workers.
However, that widespread perception doesn't match reality. A close look at state and local pension plans across the nation, and a comparison of them to those in the private sector, reveals a more complicated story.