Professor Krugman says,
The bottom line, then, is that while the budget is all over the news, we’re not having a real debate; it’s all sound, fury, and posturing, telling us a lot about the cynicism of politicians but signifying nothing in terms of actual deficit reduction. And we shouldn’t indulge those politicians by pretending otherwise.Read the whole column here
Ever wonder how a surplus as Clinton left office, turned into a deficit?Well,we gave the money away to the wealthiest Americans in tax cuts and are continuing to do so. Now we are going to cut funding for food to children and women and for heat for elderly and low income people so that the wealthy can keep their tax cuts. And as I said here, health care reform is the way to reduce deficits. It seems a Nobel Laureate economist agrees with that assessment.
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Bill maybe you can make sense out of all this talk about underfunded retirements and what I did wrong as a town employee. Way back when you were a twinkle in your fathers eye I took a job with the town as a policeman. No training and the job paid just under 3,000 thousand dollar per year for a fifty hour work week. The secretary John Marlin explained that the town has a health insurance with blue cross blue shield that pays 50/50. The plan is good until the day I die and will cover my family too. He also explained that the town has a good retirement plan. After working 32 years I can retire at 80% of my highest three years in salary. Each week I had to pay 5% of my yearly salary to the Bristol county retirement system. Before I became a policeman I worked in the private sector for six years and four years in the Marine Corp. These ten years qualified me to collect social security at age 62.
Now for the rest of the story.
In 1984 long before the town hired out for ambulance service the policeman would drive the town ambulance to everything under the sun and moon. We picked up people who had a heart attack, dead or injured in a car crash, general transportation to the hospital and some cases we drove patients to Boston hospitals. We also transported the people who bark at the moon to Taunton State hospital. While carrying a heavy set male with a back problem out of his split level house in the middle of January I slipped on the icy step and fell all the way down the outside steps with this big guy landing on top of me. I injured my back and chipped my vertebrate, so the only other policeman drove the both of us to the hospital. I worked for another couple of years in lots of pain and finally the town decided to force a disability retirement at the age of 48. I collect a county retirement and when I turn 62 and applied for my social security but was told that I can only collect 250 dollars a month because Perez Regean didn't want people like me to double dip. I lost 60% of my social security even though I paid into my quarters and should have collected 750 dollars a month. In 1986 while working for the town I was earning 32,000 thousand a year. A 72% disability retirement allows me $23, 040 dollars per year. Now that I am 62 I collect $3,000 from social security for a total sum of $26,040 per year.
Two years ago the town business man a Mr. Cressman sent me a letter telling me that the town will no longer cover my blue cross and that I shall need to contact the town because I qualify for Medicare part B. The business guy explained the town passed some law where I'm no longer going to pay 50/50 for my insurance. I think the town threw me under the bus but at my age why fight the system. Maybe you were part of it I don't know.
Now, maybe you can tell this old man where I went wrong. Please!
To: February 18, 2011 6:00 PM
For whatever my two cents is worth, given the information you disclosed as fact, you did nothing wrong. Should your circumstances have occurred in the private sector, you could well be much worse off.
The history of how are senior citizens are treated overall in this country is sad.
Having said that, those same senior citizens are also typically taxpayers. Should government ask you to pay a lot more taxes than you are paying now to fund programs it cannot afford? That is the very real issue that affects many millions of people across this country.
Thanks for responding. The facts are true. You see when I was discharged from the Marine Corp one of my Marine friends decided to join the New Bedford police and kept telling me to take the civil service test for Dartmouth. Now you need to know that Dartmouth was a small town with maybe some 6,500 people and most were all farmers or poor people. I went to the Bliss Corner school. The Padanaram kids went to the school on Bush Street, some kids from Pig town went to the Crapo School and the kids from the North went to Gidley School. The Cushman School burned down. Back in the day people worked in the cotton mills and owned or worked at a small hardware store variety store on corner drug store. I do not remember anyone who didn't work at doing something to feed the families. Most people from Bliss corner who owned a house had a garden. Not much money around to spend on things. Lucky to have a pair of shoes with no holes. Before I was born my parents bought a three family house and they rented the 2 and 3 floors. The rents were small because like everyone else they had no money to spend and some times my father would let them skip a month or two but they always made sure to pay the money. My parents didn't want me to be a town cop. Back in the day the cops were mostly part time When I joined the cops had 9 full timers and plenty of part timers. NO UNIONS until after the smart cops showed up and they got things moving.
Before you could say ALIBABA the young cops had school college degree and went to school and learn about the laws. They/we hired a lawyer to make trouble for the selectmen and started making more money than I ever thought a cop could. This union thing made some of the old cops mad. But the young cops kept on going and before I retired they were beginning to make plenty of money. Too bad I didn't stick around a little more I could be making more money. I'm happy for the cops they deserve what they get because they can't forget what they see. It makes them drink and do things that cause family problems. I not work in the so call private places because they didn't pay too much money and you had to work plenty of hours to make it through the week. This one thing I know is the cops didn't or the teachers didn't make this town or state go into the dump it is the fault of everyone but most is the fault of the politicians. Union are good until they become bad just like everything that is wrong the people on the top of the manure pile smile we the people inside the manure pile stink. I hope we an do something to make things better but I'm happy to be at the end of my time and not the beginning.
Putting this into perspective, take a homeowner here in town age 62. Forced to retire earlier than planned due to their job being eliminated. Earns roughly $1300 per month in Social Security. Can't get Medicare until age 65, so pays for all of their health costs. Has a modest nest egg to supplement Social Security. Pays $2000 a year in property taxes and is subject to Federal and State income taxes. Not to mention fees paid for Excise taxes and PAYT. Has dropped off the unemployment statistics because the person is now considered retired. Less unemployed workers, isn't that great? Variants of this situation exist here in town. In the end, this group simply does not have enough to make it through retirement without further assistance. Realistically, they will lose everything they earned through a lifetime of being good, productive, and hard-working members of our society. Prior to simply deciding we need to raise taxes, I think of people like these. Do you?
No.
I am close to that age and never thought of Social Security as my salvation. Planned otherwise. SS was a supplement not a sole source of income in my retirement.
I agree with you that working people must not rely on social security. This money was the government making the working people and the private business to pay money to social security for a little money when the worker get old. I am not complaining but like to know where I go wrong that is all. I work all my life I never collect the unemployment monies and support my family who are all big and have nice degree's that make a lot of money which is nice because my wife and me are very happy people. My wife never work so no collect anything. Too bad. We get married and buy a small house for a while than the kids come and we buy big house. My parents die and I stay with the three family house and collect the rents. The people today pay more money for one floor than I pay to the bank to buy the house. This is something I don't understand. Everything go up and up. The money we get for the rents and my money from the retirement I do alright but I don't understand what I did wrong. Thank you for the talk. Now I make 73 yreas old. So far so good.
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