Firefighters and Police have nice retirement plans in Houston (Parker: to buy, tax)

[HookTheBrotherUp]

I guess unions are good for something, someone..... Parker taking city pension cuts battle to Legislature | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

When you have no money, and your spouse wants to buy a new sofa, what do you do? Common sense says you would not buy it. Or, the not so smart decision would be to 'charge' it, pay later. It is common sense here what Houston needs to do, even if the Ponzi scheme was legal, it still does not work in the end. And the surviving spouse gets 100% of the benefits? I chose the wrong profession.

[DrLizardo]

Originally Posted by HookTheBrotherUp

I guess unions are good for something, someone.....

The politicians created this beast years ago and current and future taxpayers get stuck with the bill. Some of it goes back years, like the McConn and Whitmire administrations. But the real damage came under Lee Brown, who created golden handcuffs to keep cops working in Houston (rather than retiring and going elsewhere) by creating huge future pension liabilities rather than incurring current expenses with new-hires and pay raises. Oh, and in exchange he finagled a deal in which the city reduced its share of contributions to the pension funds.

The police pension board sued the city to try and force it do the right thing. Bill White said he would, but all he really did was reduce pensions and continue to dodge making the required payments by creating an even larger debt in the form of pension bonds.

Parker is just another politician.

I don't know squat about the condition of the fire dudes' pension system, but in light of the past history of politicians screwing the pooch on this issue - I'm not going to just jump up and root for Parker on this one.

[TheEconomist]

The city can only tax so much before it loses the ability to increase revenue. One would think the public sector unions would see this and try to create a sustainable system. That being said, I would really hate to see the firefighters get hurt in this. Unlike police officers who tend to enjoy the authority, fire fighters are true public servants. They just want to fight fires and the rank and file were not a part of the golden pension problem.