If you’re going to be required to pay for something, common sense would say that you should have the right to know how much it costs, right? After all, no one likes surprises—especially if those surprises cost trillions and you, your children and your children’s children are likely going to have to pay for it for decades to come.

Yet, there are those who seem to think that the American taxpayers will forever just keep shoveling our money into the furnace of bailing out banks, car companies, and union pensions funds. Moreover, these same putrid people (be they bureaucrats, bankers, or union bosses) seem to think that, if they hide the truth from the the American taxpayer, we will just blindly and willingly keep bailing out failure. Have they learned nothing over these past two years?

The Ticking Time Bomb

On Saturday, three examples were given of the public pension Ponzi scheme that is beginning to unravel. In one case (Central Fall, RI), the costs have put a city into financial ruin. In Chicago, Mayor Daley is openly talking about reorganizing the city’s pension through bankruptcy. Then , of course, there’s California and newly retread governor Jerry Brown and the 30-year old legacy of union domination in the tarnished Golden State.

However, just so you know that Saturday’s three examples are not mere isolated incidents, you might want to know the following:

• In 2011 70% of Decator, Illinois’ property taxes will go to fund union pensions (h/t anacreon)
• Illinois, as a state, has $54.4 billion in unfunded liabilities
• New Jerseyans owe their public pension plans up to $173.9 billion and it was discovered the Democrat-run state allegedly defrauded investors without disclosing the debt as bonds were sold from 2001 through 2007
• New York State may have $120 billion in unfunded pension debt
• New York City, on the other hand, may have had up to $76 billion in unfunded liability before 2008’s market slump
• The City of Philadelphia’s public pension plan is nearly $5 billion underfunded
• Oklahoma has $12 billion in unfunded pension liabilities
• Colorado has $16.8 billion in unfunded pension liabilities
• …And the list goes on and on…

(more…)

Unless you’ve been pulling a Rip Van Winkle for the past few years, you know that your state is more busted than Larry Craig in an airport toilet. The only possible exception is the state of Denial, and it closed its borders to new arrivals sometime in late 2008.

One of the main drivers of this sorry state of affairs is the massive disparity between public-sector and private-sector compensation, especially when it comes to benefits such as pensions. Various studies have found anywhere between a 70 percent and a 34 percent differential in total compensation, with public-sector employees getting not just more pay and benefits but near-absolute job security and early retirement. Consider California:

A bipartisan bill…passed virtually without debate unleashed the odious “3 percent at 50” retirement plan in 1999. Under this plan, at age 50 many categories of public employees are eligible for 3 percent of their final year’s pay multiplied by the number of years they’ve worked. So if a police officer starts working at age 20, he can retire at 50 with 90 percent of his final salary until he dies, and then his spouse receives that money for the rest of her life. Even during the economic crisis, “3 percent at 50” and the forces behind it have only become more entrenched.

In the midst of California’s 2008–09 fiscal meltdown, with the impact of deluxe public pensions making daily headlines, the city of Fullerton nevertheless sought to retroactively increase the defined-benefit retirement plan for its city employees by a jaw-dropping 25 percent. What’s more, the Fullerton City Council negotiated the increase in closed session, outside public view.

More on that here.

(more…)

**FIXED**

(Big Warning on Content)
Yesterday, we reported that Barack Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings and his GLSEN organization were promoting a book to children that included a pornographic image of men having sex while boy scouts looked on. The day before that we reported that Kevin Jennings’ organization GLSEN was promoting a children’s book that detailed first-graders having sex.

As founder and executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) Jennings approved of and promoted several filthy sex books for children. Scott Baker from Breitbart-TV.com and Co-Host of ‘The B-Cast‘ submitted a shocking report to Gateway Pundit blog back on December 4, 2009. The report detailed the reading list promoted to 7-12 grade students by Kevin Jennings’ GLSEN organization. This material has not been reported in detail at Big Government website. Remember as you read this that Kevin Jennings is today the nation’s Safe Schools Czar.

Here again is what Scott Baker had to say about this vile material being pushed on children.

(more…)