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The new enemy

BY Dave Ross  on June 8, 2012 @ 10:29 am (Updated: 7:06 am - 6/10/12 )

The economy has a new enemy, and you saw it in the voting on Tuesday: retirees.

While Wisconsin was teaching its unions a lesson, San Jose and San Diego were teaching their municipal retirees a lesson.

Voters in both of those cities cut the pensions of public employees by huge margins. It was a bipartisan effort: both Democrats and Republicans joined the landslide vote that cut benefits.

Governments have trimmed their pension plans before, but it usually applied only to new employees. San Jose and San Diego will be cutting current beneficiaries.

And other cities are very interested.

Even some private companies are very interested because it shows there are legal ways to take away pensions that workers thought were locked in.

The idea that people deserve their retirement no matter what seems to be slowly changing. Boomer retirees look a little too comfortable. They may have earned it fair and square, but when you're paying 27% of the budget to people who aren't working - as San Jose was - it's hard to justify, especially to younger employees who know they have no chance at anything remotely as generous.

But there is a downside to cutting retirements. I just want to alert the Millenials that this means a lot of us Baby Boomers may decide we need to keep working well into our Betty White years. That means we'll be right there next to you into our 70's and 80's swapping funny blood pressure anecdotes, and not appreciating your irony or getting your Dub Step references.

We also tend to brag about the used underwear we bought at the thrift store. Anyway, have a good weekend. See you at work Monday. And Tuesday. And...you know...

Dave Ross, KIRO Radio Talk Show Host
Dave Ross is co-host of The Ross & Burbank Show on KIRO Radio (weekdays 9-Noon) and never too far from the spotlight.
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Comments (73)


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  • fartforce1 wrote...
    Retied persons and duplicity., What do you do with them?
    June 10, 2012 4:43 pm
    Those who lived through one of the greatest times of the developmental and also gave us catastrophically high debt. But who in their right mind would cut a retired persons earned security before cutting huge chunks out of the military, the federal reserve and overseas assistance to nations like Israel or Germany or Pakistan?
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  • HPD 5-0 wrote...
    ...Owebama and his programs are just starting to pull us out of...
    June 10, 2012 4:56 pm
    Bwahahahahahahahahahahahah....stop...stop....my side hurts....bwahahahahahahahahahahahahshshhshshshshshhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah....*cough*...hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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  • fartforce1 wrote...
    Oh look, another intelligent comment by HP
    June 10, 2012 5:03 pm
    For instance, The US unemployment rate is lower now than before O took office. http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
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  • ron prevost wrote...
    Fartface - Back thru the looking glass.
    June 10, 2012 5:21 pm
    Will you leftist stop with this lie ? Total employment is less than when Oz took office. And we needed in 42 months to have added over 8,000,000 jobs just to have broken even.

    The only way the unemployment RATE could (on paper) go down is that millions have STOPPED LOOKING for work, and are therefor out of the labor force. .. But, feel free to keep repeating your farce. The folks who aren't working know it's not true.

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  • Harry O wrote...
    Details and Fact Please
    June 10, 2012 5:21 pm
    Thank you, Rational for stating the facts of the situation. Dave posts that San Diego and San Jose are cutting pension benefits. Of course there are no details about anything, just a grabbing headline to generate fear & blame. For God sake Dave stop it. Provide some facts or gtfo. Rational stated it succinctly, the elected politicians have alligator mouths that can't back up their hummingbird ar$e$. I'm supposed to cry about someone who gets 80% of their salary based on the last 5 years of employment without ever contributing a dime? Please. And then then there's the BS "Pre-Reagan" garbage. Look a little deeper. People on welfare fare better than a working person in the 50's. Fact. And yes Chuck we do have a segment of the population that, to use your own words, "breed like rabbits". They're Mexican "immigrants". Another fact to confound, 60% of the population receives far more Gov't benefit dollars than they have or ever will pay in and it's not the elderly.
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  • delvin wrote...
    yes chuck-cry me a river. Who has pensions anymore. next you will try and get me to cry for teachers who work less than 9 months a year.
    June 10, 2012 7:14 pm
    and a teaching degree is about the easiest degree to get. Compare it to an engineer degree-no comparison. Quit cry over gov public union people who have some of the lowest output jobs around.
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  • CH wrote...
    If you can't see the hand writing on the wall . . . .
    June 10, 2012 8:54 pm
    your blind. And to think the smart ones want to go back to the bush years of disaster? The very rich got richer and the rest of us paid for it.
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  • longwayhome wrote...
    Check your spelling hpd
    June 10, 2012 9:32 pm
    Or didn't they teach that to you in your remedial Hispanic class, you liar!
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  • soo purletiv wrote...
    @ Dave Ross
    June 10, 2012 9:32 pm
    And I quote: "That means we'll be right there next to you into our 70's and 80's..."

    Yes you will! But I would rather you be there working side by side in your 80s than watch you retire at 50 on my dime....

    Wouldn't it seem more apropos to find a balance?

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  • Newton wrote...
    What about the Mariners!.
    June 10, 2012 9:35 pm
    What will happen if nobody has any money to see them play. That would be a crime agianst humanity.
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  • jstumbo wrote...
    My plan for pensions...
    June 10, 2012 10:14 pm
    If a person is collecting a pension, they cannot work for any level of the government. People that are retired will continue to get their pensions. All current pension plans for current employees would be canceled. They would get whatever percentage of their pension when they retire, equal to the percentage they have in now towards retirement age. The years for basing the amount of the pension would be the last few years. All current plans would be converted to 401K plans for the future. Government would match 50% on the dollar up to 5% of their salary if they choose to put it into their 401K. That way people get what they have earned to this point, but it all stops now.
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