Pension Tension

There is a storm gathering in this country over the issue of government-funded employee pensions. In Pennsylvania, for example, pension costs will account for nearly 30% of state and school district employee costs within four short years. Government agencies are being crushed under the weight of pension obligations. Keystone State law limits the percentage by which government entities can raise taxes each year, creating budget gaps that many government entities that cannot possibly hope to fill. This scenario is being played out across the country. The legislative lions in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives today approved a bill backed by government unions that would limit pension obligations to 11.5% of employee expenditures. But this will only kick the problem down the road where it will explode like an I.E.D. near the end of the decade.
This background is important to understand what's going on in Pennsylvania's neighboring state, New Jersey. New Jersey is perhaps the poster child for runaway pension costs. So it makes what Susan Bass Levin is doing inexplicable.
From 1988 to 2002 Susan Bass Levin was the popular mayor of Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Cherry Hill is a sprawling bedroom suburb of Philadelphia. Following her term as mayor, Bass Levin was appointed commissioner of the state's department of community affairs by then Gov. James McGreevey where she oversaw municipal finances and state aid.
After a 2005 stint working on Jon Corzine's election campaign Mayor Bass Levin was appointed by Corzine to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Her salary: $300,000 per year plus an expensive apartment in Manhattan.
Best of all for Mayor Bass Levin, she didn't have to give up her DCA job. Gov. Corzine appointed her to a finance board at DCA, which kept the state pension meter running for New Jersey taxpayers while she was earning $300,000 in her PA day job. So here's Mayor Bass Levin picking up 300 large every year, living la dolce vita in Manhattan, and teeing up a fine retirement, thanks to inside New Jersey politics.
Wonder of wonders, Mayor Bass Levin recently announced that she will be retiring from state service this month after 25 years. Her modest payout: about $60,000 a year for as long as she lives, which at her current age of 58 could be a very, very long time. Especially since she'll also receive Cadillac medical care, courtesy of New Jersey taxpayers, till death do them part.
What doesn't pass the smell test here is that a woman who as DCA commissioner should have seen the looming pension crisis coming when she oversaw municipal finances in the state, who grabbed $300,000 a year working for a public agency that is historically troubled financially, and who better than most people should know the crisis facing states like New Jersey works the system to her advantage. Meanwhile, New Jerseyans face one of the highest tax burdens in the country.
This is an intractable problem. We have a solemn obligation to meet contractual requirements entered into with good faith by both sides. On the other hand, through no fault of our own, we can no longer afford those obligations. We are like the long-distance swimmer who finds himself halfway across the channel unable to continue. We face the dilemma of choosing to continue on or turn back. One thing's for sure: We don't need to carry the Susan Bass Levins of the country on our backs.

Just thought you might like to know.

Whose Fault Is It, Really?

   President Obama continues to maintain that the reason his party was "shellacked" (his word) in the recent mid-term elections was that Democrats didn't "communicate" their messages well enough. Failure to communicate might account for a "spanking," or maybe a "drubbing." But a "shellacking" goes a lot deeper than blaming the electorate for not getting your nuanced brillance.

And diving deeper, a researcher from California now says that the president's legislative agenda, not his golden pipes, accounted for 32 seats of the historic losses suffered by Democrats on November 2.

Eric McGhee of the Public Policy Institute of California focused on the four most unpopular Obama initiatives: the TARP bailout, the failed stimulus bill, healthcare taxation-and-annexation, and the carbon tax known as cap and trade. He compared Democrats who voted for those four boat anchors to lawmakers who voted against them. The result? For each time a Democrat running for reelection lined up behind Pres. Obama on these four bills he or she lost anywhere from two-thirds of a percentage point to four percentage points in his election re-bid. Losses were obviously greater in the more moderate districts.

McGhee's conclusion is that Republican gains would have topped  out at 210 House seats, rather that the 242 they'll have in the next Congress, had the losing lawmakers not lined up behind the White House Pied Pipers.

Former Bush election engineer Karl Rove points out that McGhee's analysis demonstrates that legislators who buck the will of their constituents end up paying their own postage come January.

Meanwhile the fingerpointing of Democrat failure continues--it's the president's fault, it's Speaker Pelosi's fault, it's Harry Reid's fault, It's Fox News' fault, Rush Limbaugh's fault and on and on.  The real story is that a bunch of congressmen who at some point stopped listening to their constituents have only themselves to blame.

Just thought you might like to know.