Scranton Mayor Slashes Pay For All City Workers—Including Police And firefighters—

[merrylander]

Poor old Scranton has had its share of troubles, floods from hurricane Diane, the mine disaster, and now little more than half the population it had in its heyday.

[icenine]

Originally Posted by whell

One of the biggest financial challenges that most cities face is trying to figure out how to fund their pension obligations for pensions that far more generous than the private sector.

What private pensions? Where have you been the last 20 years? You are not concerned about the loss of pensions in the private sector and the lack of good health care benefits for private employees? Are you just glad that public employees are going to feel your pain too?

Cops on minimum wage...like I said about the Third Worldization of the USA.
A cop making $7 an hour can pull someone over,take $20 bucks from the driver and not give a ticket to the driver. Oh the dispatcher and the cam monitors will be on the take too since they are probably getting paid the same.Race to the bottom...

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by Boreas

I think the dear boy was trying to say Ritalin.

John

Trust me John I knew what he meant. I just wanted to see if he could actually come up with something that was a little better than his obviously third grade education was allowing. He's little better than BB when it comes to making a point (or a coherent insult for that matter).

[whell]

Originally Posted by icenine

What private pensions? Where have you been the last 20 years? You are not concerned about the loss of pensions in the private sector and the lack of good health care benefits for private employees? Are you just glad that public employees are going to feel your pain too?

Kind of an idiotic thing to say, IMHO. First, there are a number of large companies that still offer pensions. I'm fortunate enough to work for one. And yes Bill, a few industries either blew up or went through bankruptcy and offloaded their pension obligations to the PBGC, and companies today pay premiums to the PBGC if they want to offer a pension. However, federal pension funding and reporting rules make it almost impossible now for most companies to offer pensions due to heavy administrative expense.

As far as health care, no worries. Obama fixed health care with PPACA.

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by whell

Kind of an idiotic thing to say, IMHO. First, there are a number of large companies that still offer pensions. I'm fortunate enough to work for one. And yes Bill, a few industries either blew up or went through bankruptcy and offloaded their pension obligations to the PBGC, and companies today pay premiums to the PBGC if they want to offer a pension. However, federal pension funding and reporting rules make it almost impossible now for most companies to offer pensions due to heavy administrative expense.

As far as health care, no worries. Obama fixed health care with PPACA.

Geez, here you go again, guess I had better get out my violin. So how does the company you work for manage it, or do they cry all the way to the bank?

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by icenine

What private pensions? Where have you been the last 20 years? You are not concerned about the loss of pensions in the private sector and the lack of good health care benefits for private employees? Are you just glad that public employees are going to feel your pain too?

That's the Conservative way! If private pension benefits suck and public pension plans don't suck,what's the answer? F#@k up the public plans so everyone's equal. That's the only way to "protect the middle class".

John

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by whell

...... and companies today pay premiums to the PBGC if they want to offer a pension.

Hey, let's make the financial industry pay premiums to the Treasury Department if they want to gamble with their depositors' money!

Good idea, right, Whell?

No?

Hmmm.

John

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by beej

What the mayor did was an act of desperation and I don't think that anyone who isn't directly involved has a real sense of the details of how this all came to be.

I agree. I think what we're seeing is a "Mexican standoff" between the Mayor and the City Council and I think the Mayor wanted this to end up in court. How it ever came to this is something we just don't know at the moment because neither side is talking.

John

[bobabode]

[QUOTE=whell;111937]Yup. Dems suing dems because the they've sucked the public trough dry. Then watch the blame game start.

Cities all over the the country are under financial stress or going into bankruptcy because they're overspent. One of the biggest financial challenges that most cities face is trying to figure out how to fund their pension obligations for pensions that far more generous than the private sector. They're trying to figure out how to cover the nut for health care costs, which are typically more generous than the private sector. Since these cost have been rising for years and administrations like Scranton have kicked the can down the road, the costs are now beyond what the cities can sustain.

See? Ain't that hard to figure.[/QUOTE]

I guess not if you've nothing more than fill in the blanks, form letter political idealogy whellie. Scranton has been losing it's tax base since the 1950s.The town was in the shitter long before the Great Recession which is the proximate cause of these budget shortfalls. Which party was responsible for that? Your slavish mindset that the Democratic Party are hogs at the public trough is laughable. You're simpleminded parroting of the paint by numbers philosophy of the teabaggers may sound intelligent when standing in front of a mirror whellie but here it's pretty much a joke. Try again.

[icenine]

Idiotic thing to say? Are you telling me there has not been a decline in the private pension plans in the last 25 years? I am sure if your pension had gone under or you were at the mercy of a 401k tied to the stock market you would not be so happy Whelly. As long as its not your pension right?