State pensions creating employee fiasco

I feel for the state and federal employee. I really do. What was once  taken for granted is now uncertain. State government
employees  generally have no desire to share
in this pain, but who likes hearing  that
promises made to them are void?

Some say they gave up higher  wages for a
cushy pension; others simply believe the state should live  up to the promises it made, and some believe simply
that they  are entitled to the pension for
having served faithfully.

And you know  what? They are right. It is
their money and they should get it.  Unfortunately,
years of mismanagement by both parties — failures to  properly save the money that was designated for
retirement, instead  spending it on other
projects — has doomed the nest eggs of millions.

In the rest of the private sector, most nest eggs plummeted. Those who  invested smartly are still , but many retirees
have to go back to  work. Some of the solutions
for the pension crisis are to raise the  retirement
age or reduce benefits. Both suggestions are ardently  opposed. But just like I said the employees were
correct in that they  deserved what they were
promised, the state governments and the  general
population are right to demand that state union employees  share in the pain.

For a state government to go bankrupt due to overbearing debt; or the federal government
bailing out the states yet  again, plummeting
it into even greater foreign debt while at the same  time extracting more state sovereignty in exchange
for the bailout, is  not a feasible solution
either.

Armstrong Williams is on Sirius/XM Power 169, 7-8 p.m. and 4-5 a.m., Monday through Friday. Become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/arightside, and follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/arightside.