Thursday, April 18, 2013

State pension crises persist

Kentucky's pension reforms seen as positive for the state | Reuters: "pension crises persist in many places, most notably Illinois, which currently has a shortfall of $98.6 billion. Kentucky is one of 14 states that have only made partial pension payments over the past seven years, according to Chris Tobe, who served as a trustee of the system from 2008 through 2012. In fiscal 2011, it had investment returns of nearly 19 percent, but assets "grew by only 1 percent due to the negative cash flows from underfunding," he said in a white paper last summer. Almost every state has enacted pension reforms in the last five years, and political fights are erupting over the country over whether the reforms go far enough or if they are even legal. Many states only made changes to benefits for new hires, which proved too slow to solve the most pressing problems."

Public pensions are nothing less than a raid on the public treasury--hogs at the trough!


 

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