Financial Entrapment

Since the beginning, it was an illusory and overly generous pension program (30 percent bonus) that only benefited the “we few” people and politicians who took advantage of it. It’s a policy that escaped reasoned analysis to determine its long-term consequence. Today, we face the hard reality that we can no longer afford this program.

Politicians and bureaucrats have finally met the beast: the program is in fact a financial entrapment right into the sea of bankruptcy. We say bankruptcy in that recent salary increase in public sector wages had to be deferred indefinitely, the EIC could only be met a quarter of the way, government obligations to the retirement fund took a lot of fancy footing; including deferment of tax returns to the larger businesses; we can’t pay last year’s retirees their share of 30 percent bonus; and the obvious contraction of revenue generation which makes the constitutional mandate of retiring deficits next to impossible.

This mind-numbing experience tells us of the obvious need to learn to live within our means in both the calm waters of good times and the rough seas of bad times. It obviates the dire necessity to mandate that all legislation requiring use of public funds must first be critically scrutinized to determine funding source so we don’t incur unfunded liabilities down the stretch as is the case today with the 30 percent bonus turned into an ordeal. Our experience in this matter need not be an ordeal if politicians could only use their better judgment against entrapping the local coffers with warped generosity.

Benefits should be denied all special contract services, consultants, retirees (from within and without) who’ve returned to government services, and such perks should be limited to not more than 25 percent for all new hires at the end of their term. The so-called annual, within grade and merit increases should be completely eliminated given the most of these perks have never really been earned full square. It is riddled with superficial justification for a loot which never jives with expected productivity of most recipients.

With this information readily available before us as quick reference, current and future politicians and bureaucrats must bid adios to ad-hoc approaches to policy matters that have at best limited the ability of local government to funnel hard to come by taxpayers money to more critical services, i.e., education, health and public safety.