Ruane
I thought the Bush Administration was bad about giving favors to friends. THIS makes me fucking crazy.
Okay, so Policitian can't pay into a retirement fund because of technicality. In 1994, he has the option to start paying, BUT DOESN'T. Then he gets old. Then he gets sick. Then someone notices that he has no money. Then the state government decides that it is their business to give him money. Because he was a good Polician and they like him/feel bad for his wife. Then they spend weeks of lawmaking-time figuring out how to give him money. And they do. But they don't want it to appear that they're just giving him the money, so his family has to sell his house and pay that to the state to make up for what he would have paid had he contributed his whole life. When they all die. Basically they get money but don't leave a house to their heirs.
I am sure that he was a very nice man. I'm sure that if I met his wife I would feel bad for her too. And it is unfortunate that his pension crap worked out the way it did. But his lack of financial planning is not my government's probem. HE COULD HAVE GOTTEN A FULL PENSION FROM PAYING FOR ONLY TEN YEARS STARTING IN 1994! If every state employee who didn't plan for retirement got help, we wouldn't have a government, we would have a bank. I don't care that his family is paying the state. Any legislation enacted for one person is sketchy. Very sketchy.
If the rich politicians feel so bad for him, why don't they use their influence to start a private fund for his survivors? They would end up being able to give his wife a lot more money without wasting everybody's time. But no. Rich politicians use their influence to make us pay for it in time and money.
I'm sorry that he's died. But he had his whole life to plan for this. He could have fixed everything in 1994. No one can say he didn't know about the legislation HE WAS A LAWMAKER. That's like a lawyer claiming not to know stealing is against the law.
He should not get his own legislation. But he is. The State has failed us on this one.
posted by Bry at 6:48 PM
3 Comments:
My feelings on this are mixed but you defnitely have a valid point.
Why didn't he just join in 1994? Get vested, get real. As a member of the MTRB 11% of my salary goes directly to my pension, pay in...get a pension. Don't pay, don't get one. That's all folks.
That is all folks. The biggest argument out there about the 1994 thing is that "he didn't know". He's a fucking lawmaker. He was probably in the room when they voted on it. HE probably voted on it.
And besides, if there's one thing I learned from sitting through some of my mom's law school classes it's that ignorance of the law is never an excuse. It is your job as a citizen (and as an employee of the state) to know the law and follow it.
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