Once Safe, Public Pensions Are Now Facing Cuts

[Herman Munster]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/06/business/06pension.html?ei=5094&en=c273a2cf6df4f935&hp=&ex=1162789200&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1162785591-kpKOBIh0sINA2uOgkk7DMQ

After losing a leg in the line of duty, Dan Toneck, a San Diego police officer, spent nearly a year in rehabilitation before returning to work, doing his job for another five years with an artificial limb. Mr. Toneck, 37, was granted a disability retirement last year after 16 years on the job. Some of his fellow officers wept as he left headquarters for the last time.

Then, 10 months later, the impossible happened. San Diego cut his pension by about 10 percent, along with those of about 180 other disabled city retirees. “They’re trying to pay the bills on the backs of the employees,” Mr. Toneck said. Across the country, government workers’ pensions are protected by guarantees even stouter than those on pensions in the private sector. The legal promises, often backed up by union contracts, cover more than 15 million people.

Years of supporting court interpretations have enshrined the view that once a public employee has earned a pension, no one can take it away. Even during New York City’s fiscal crisis 30 years ago, no existing pension promises were reduced.

But now a number of state and local governments are quietly challenging those guarantees. Financially troubled San Diego is the highest-profile example, but a handful of states, cities and smaller government bodies have also found ways to scale back existing promises and even shrink some current payments.

[rpannier]

1. Why not cut those pensions???

Who the hell needs to retire?
People should work until they die on the job!
If people don't want to wirk until they are 100, then they can live on the streets.

Sorry: I'm channeling the spirits of the neo-con American Taliban