30 MAR 2011, Wednesday

• The above is not meant to single out teachers.  Having said that...
• Public pensions are out of hand.  A retired teacher in California gets as much as the national average of working teachers?  Recently, I've read many recent articles of police and fireman getting 90% of their pay (gets conveniently spiked by overtime in the last year or two).
• Let's look at a military retiree...there is no overtime, suffers extra costs (and lost spousal income) throughout career due to forced multiple moves (average every 3 years), allowances are stripped out for retirement pay calculation and only base pay is used resulting in less than the advertised 50% of their last pay that many folks think they get...closer to 35% for some after the reductions.
• When public employee retirements fall in the more appropriate range of the military retiree, I think that would be a good starting point for future discussions.
• Until then...meh!  
• HAT TIP TO THE BLUE DOG DEMOCRATS...Benchmarks for Fiscal Reform!!!  (click to read)
• GO DOGS!!!