How public worker pensions are too rich for New York's - and America's - blood

The most obvious example of the clear and present danger of expanded state spending in the Welfare and Warfare state are the pension obligations found at the local level.

We have blogged on this topic before, the financial crisis will be on the order of the Greek catastrophe and, as public sector employees fight to maintain this largess we are destined for, to paraphrase Paul Seabright, turbulence of a magnitude not seen.

Click the link to read a recitation of the problem, below is a tidbit I have posted in our teachers' lounge (more accurately, a leisure area provided by taxpayers)

New York’s pension rules make it pay more to retire than to work. And the horrible habits here are a window on a national pension picture that’s looking more disastrous by the day.

Tacking on overtime is only one of a long list of union-won perks behind New York’s rising pension burden. To dodge a federal law capping public pensions to $195,000 a year, in 1997, Albany created a second fund for "excess benefits." Twenty-eight New York employees, nearly all teachers, exploited the loophole, leaving taxpayers with a $6 million check this year alone.

Read more:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/08/08/2010-08-08_how_public_worker_pensions_are.html#ixzz0w8tzkZe2