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Job to Do Before Retiring
centredayly.com
June 5, 2006
Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year -- you drag yourself out of bed, gulp down a cup of coffee, some breakfast if you have time, make sure the kids have lunch money, grab your own brown bag or pail as you head out the door, and you go to work.
Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.
It pays the rent -- the mortgage if you're fortunate enough to have a piece of the American dream -- puts clothes on everyone's backs and will help, somewhat, with tuition when that bill comes around.
And when you've done it long enough, when the years of labor turn into decades, there's the pension that's been promised, that was part of the deal at the very beginning, to take care of you in your old age.
Unless, of course, you worked for Enron. Or Bethlehem Steel. Or any of the other companies and corporations that either no longer exist or, thanks to bankruptcy courts and easy-to-lobby legislators, don't have to live up to their end of the bargain.
Pension fund? Sorry. Gone. Thanks for the 40 years.
If only you had the sense to run for office. Especially in Pennsylvania, where retired legislators, after just a couple of terms, can anticipate a life of financial ease in their golden years.
Paid for by the working stiffs who, day after day, week after week ...
And increased substantially in 2001 by an overwhelming vote of the future retirees themselves.
Now, the State Employees Retirement System and the Public School Employees Retirement System are either, as state Sen. Jake Corman, R-Benner Township, said, not in such dire straits, or as Centre County Controller Chuck Witmer thinks, is "a train wreck waiting to happen ... barreling down the tracks at us."
"You can't do much about the hole Act 9 (the 2001 measure that put lawmakers in a separate, higher-eligibility category) dug for the commonwealth," said state Rep. Steven Nickol, R-York, one of only a handful of legislators who voted against it five years ago, "but you can start making pension changes for the future."
They can. And they must.
Along with meaningful property tax reform and a lobbying disclosure law, addressing the pension issue and its cost to Pennsylvania residents must be an immediate priority for members of the General Assembly.
It will give them something to do while waiting for their retirement.
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