With few exceptions, state and local pension funds are woefully underfunded.
Five heavily populated states—California, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, and Texas—collectively lack $431.5 billion; money that won’t be paid out to hopeful pensioners.
That’s according to those states’ own accounts published in a 2012 Harvard University study that was led by former Assistant Treasury Secretary Tom Healy.
And the real numbers may be even worse: Accounting for current low interest rates, Healy and his coauthors estimate that the true extent of underfunding is $1.26 trillion.
.......The Little Guys Are Walking Too
Speaking of taxes, individual taxpayers are no more inclined to pay for underfunded pension promises than corporations are.
Just like Office Max, Illinois residents are voting with their feet.
And why shouldn’t they?
Legislators can’t hike taxes indefinitely to cover underfunded pensions and other government debts, and then gasp in surprise when their constituents walk.
In fact, my wife and I sold our Illinois home because we were fed up with the high taxes.
In the book How Money Walks, author Travis H. Brown writes that from 1992 to 2011, Illinois lost $31.27 billion in taxes per year because former residents like myself refused to put up with its predatory taxation.
..States and cities can’t tax their way out of the public pension crisis.
More and more people will simply get up and move. Would the last person out the door please turn out the lights?
.......The Little Guys Are Walking Too
Speaking of taxes, individual taxpayers are no more inclined to pay for underfunded pension promises than corporations are.
Just like Office Max, Illinois residents are voting with their feet.
And why shouldn’t they?
Legislators can’t hike taxes indefinitely to cover underfunded pensions and other government debts, and then gasp in surprise when their constituents walk.
In fact, my wife and I sold our Illinois home because we were fed up with the high taxes.
In the book How Money Walks, author Travis H. Brown writes that from 1992 to 2011, Illinois lost $31.27 billion in taxes per year because former residents like myself refused to put up with its predatory taxation.
..States and cities can’t tax their way out of the public pension crisis.
More and more people will simply get up and move. Would the last person out the door please turn out the lights?
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