Look Who’s Back!
Perennial failed candidate Mike Protack had an op-ed in yesterday’s News Journal about state employee pensions. His basic idea is from the Paul Ryan school of screw the young people:
There is a way, though, to protect pension rights already earned and provide future stability for employees and taxpayers. There needs to be a partial hard freeze on pension benefits.
Current retirees will see no change, and current workers will keep their accrued benefits but will transition to a 401(k) plan for the rest of their state employment, and new workers will be in a straight 401(k) plan. Workers who move into a 401(k) plan will still receive a pension when they retire, but only the benefits they accrued up to the date of the pension freeze.
An important part of the transition to the 401(k) plans is to pay each state employee 7 percent of their normal pay on each scheduled pay period to invest at their free will. This plan will align public-sector workers with the private sector while also protecting previously earned pension benefits while reducing budget pressures.
For those who say this sort of plan is unfair and can’t happen, they are wrong. As an airline employee my pension was valued at well over $1.5 million dollars. It was not modified or frozen — it was terminated. I was a union employee with a negotiated benefit. It might have seemed to be solid but it was not. Over 13,000 employees were affected, and at the time of termination the pension was over 86 percent funded.
This is not crazy. A lot of corporations are going away from traditional pensions to all 401Ks. Pensions are much more desirable because they aren’t subject to the whims of the stock market. Hopefully public employees should get some benefit from their employment since they are constantly bashed by Republicans.
Tags: Budget, Mike Protack, Pensions
“Pensions are much more desirable because they aren’t subject to the whims of the stock market.”- Sorry UI, they most decidedly ARE!
My pension fund took a MAJOR hit along with all the others when WALL STREET went KABOOM.
As the fund has still not recovered, changes HAD to be made to maintain Fed rules.
Subsequently, current workers have a harder time qualifying for pension credits,face later retirement and a few other things.
And OUR fund was conservatively invested.
WALL STREET FUCKED EVERYONE,LONG AND DEEP!!
Once public-sector benefits are brought in line with the private sector, public employees would be well within their rights to demand public-sector salaries.
Let’s try this again:
Once public-sector benefits are brought in line with the private sector, public employees would be well within their rights to demand PRIVATE-sector salaries.
sounds like sour grapes to me – an “I lost mine, so you should loose yousr too” approach.
hey, public sector workers are vastly under-paid compared to the private sector – what they give up in pay, they reap in benefits and stability
that is a choice they make when they go to work for whomever, Protack would have public sector employees give up that stabiity…
Ok Protack, then start paying public sector employes what they would get in the private sector if you want a “quid pro quo” just don’t screw them without kissing them first
your plan has EPIC fail, writen all over it and I, who cannot balance a checkbook can see that!
He ignores the difference between his private company and a public entity, which does not have bankruptcy as an option (nor should it). It’s just another of his attempts to not sound like an unhinged wingnut. Why they would give him the op-ed real estate is a mystery.
Unfortunately for him, the Republican Party is in possession of documents that are, for all intents and purposes, forgeries under the names of other party members purporting to support Protack and attack his opponents. He has to win a primary before he can run for anything important and, as shown in the last election, the GOP seems determined to oppose him in primaries even for positions as unimportant as a minority-party County Council seat.
He’s deader than he’s ever been politically but, as usual, he doesn’t realize it.
And as always, Protack can’t quite use the truth to get to his positions. His pension plan was taken over by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp, which does mean that he’ll get some kind of payout. It won’t be as generous as the original pilot’s program, but some of it has been guaranteed and backstopped by this agency. It was taken over by the PBGC because the airline went into bankruptcy — and because of the serious shortfall in the funding, the BK judge allowed the airline to hand over the plan to the PBGC. The amount of money owed by the airline was huge — and you wonder how they were allowed to underfund it at that level. The BK court also approved cutting pilot’s salaries, too.
And apparently his idea of payback is making sure that everyone else with a defined benefit plan should have theirs killed too.
Which isn’t to say that the defined benefit plan couldn’t use some changes — but it is deeply stupid to advocate for just killing them outright.
I suppose “Mike Protack, a former Congressional candidate” reads a bit better then, “Mike Protack, a former unsuccessful candidate for Mill Creek Region Chair.” The mere 4 comments hint at what a yawner it is… I mean the man has more sock puppets then that. You’d think they would be deployed to create the illusion of interest in whatever he had to say.