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U.S. loves cops and firefighters - but not their pensions

...But Nastro, 50, admits he's torn about police officers' pay and retirement benefits. "I'd be lying to you if I said I wasn't conflicted," he said. "I want good police work, but I'm a taxpayer too. There's got to be a middle ground."...

...The average annual pension for Suffolk County cops who have retired since 2007 was $86,702, according to figures from the Manhattan Institute, a public policy think tank, against $37,270 for other county employees, excluding teachers. The county, facing a three-year deficit of $530 million, declared a fiscal emergency in March....

...San Bernardino, a city of 210,000 some 65 miles east of Los Angeles that has been hit hard by the collapse of the housing market, says public safety spending eats up 73 percent of its general fund budget, with overtime for firefighters especially onerous. Pension costs are expected to reach $25 million this year, double the 2006 level....

...In New York, a 2010 investigation by then-attorney general Andrew Cuomo, now governor, found widespread incidence of "pension padding" - public employees working extra overtime in their last year on the job to boost pay and retirement income.

The Pew Center on the States said the gap between states' pension promises and liabilities was $757 billion in 2010.

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Far more than the number of corporate tax liability in a given year.

So where is the middle ground in all of this?

Hypocrites ??

Who amongst us are willing to refuse our benefits ?

I think there's a lot of people who are simply green  with envy !

Do you want all retirement structures to be the same ?
Do you want all jobs to pay the same ?

If yes,then it sounds to me like you may be in favor of wealth redistribution !  

Hypocrites !!

Actually, how about we set the pensions up during the lean years and don't let them get raised even during the boom years.

That way even under the worst case scenario it will be much easier to afford them.

Dont get me started on pensions for public universities. That is one of the worst exploits EVER! Hmmm, I wonder if pensions paid to public university employees has anything to do with the cost of tuition?

{{{{ Hmmm, I wonder if pensions paid to public university employees has anything to do with the cost of tuition? }}}}

You mean, because the costs of private colleges is cheaper?

Darkhorse, you gotta love dopes that think firefighters only fight fires

What firefighters do today compared to the same job 50 years ago is night and day.

Its actually funny to see people brain washed by the people who create silly videos like in post 2.  I love the one part where the guy says he gets a regular pension plus a disability pension on top of that 

Videos like post number 2 are created by the fatcats to try and make the public think that the middle class workers are the ones destroying the country, so they deflect the real reasons from themselves.  Groups like the koch brothers use garbage like this.

I have said it many times on this site, the biggest problems with pensions, isnt the pensions themselves, its the pension padding that is the problem. It dont take a math major to figure out if one dollar is going into the system and then 2 dollars i taken out, what will happen to the system.

Pensions were always supposed to be base pay only.  I blame the unions and politicians for letting this happen, both are at fault. This from day one should have never been allowed.

I also blame the politicians for freezing pension contributions when the stock market was roaring. I guess they didnt think the market could down.  So that caused a ton of shortfalls.

I also love when guys talk about how firefighters and cops can retire at younger ages then other jobs. Do you really want guys in their 60's coming to pull you out of a fire? Do you really want some 60 year old cop, trying to run down a criminal?  Come on people use common sense and stop believing the garbage about this topic. Being a firefighter and cop is a young mans game, thats why they are able to retire earlier. Most people dont even want to do these jobs.

There are jobs that people cant do as they get older. You dont see football players playing in their 50's, because they just cant do the same job as the kid in his 20's.

Also its not like they can put all the older cops and firefighters in some office, because it would be impossible to find places for all of them.

In my 25 years, i have seen some people complain about firefighters, until the day they or one of their family members needed the services, then they changed their tunes, not being able to thank the dept enough for what they did. Even writing letters to the newspapers saying such.

Theres always gonna be guys like spiderboy, bowlslit and hatrick {which we all know who he is} who will hate, because they are jealous or they have just been told to hate.

Darkhorse, i just let these guys go in one ear and out the other

CD

You could have the older firefighters retrieving the cats out of trees and older cops doing the traffic related stuff. Or, have the older firefighters retrained to be cops and on traffic duty writing tickets and investigating accidents and what not.

That would free up the younger cops to be able to deal with the other stuff that may require skills that a 60 year old my not be able to perform adequatly.

See Bowlslit, theres know talking to total assholes like you and your silly cat bashes.

This all coming from a lazy pos that shits on his ass all day, making phone calls hustling people. Guys like you wouldnt last on 1 call, because of weakness and fear. Your meant to be a friggin desk jockey, shuffling papers all day. Watch those paper cuts

And once again your lack of understanding of another job proves how clueless you are. Retrain firefighters to be cops Obviously you have no clue and understanding of either job. 

So now we train older firefighters to be cops writing tickets and investigating accidents.  What do we do with all the older cops then?  So if we keep all these older cops and firefighters on the job, guys like you would be bitching about why the cities have so many workers

Lets just say we have a city that has 150 firefighters and say 225 cops.  Lets keep all the older firefighters and cops around until they hit say 70.

great logic  you will now have depts with many more hundreds of workers

You should take that super cost cutting  to cities around the country

Once again you have managed to make a complete jackass out of yourself with your thought process.

Just cant accept the fact that these are 2 occupations that are a great service to the public and needed.

Iam 100 percent sure now, there is no way any insurance company in the world would hire such a brainless person to sell insurance. No doubt you are the cleaning person