Each passing day more information emerges about the fiscal nightmare affecting the pension system in California. A new study by Stanford University’s public policy program revels California pension systems could face pension obligations that could exceed $500 billion dollars.
The Stanford study coincides with studies by other researchers that have the system teetering on insolvency. All one has to do is look what happened to General Motors pension fiasco of underfunding pension contributions and payouts of lucrative benefits that could not be sustained.
The same is happening in California which was not the result of the financial crisis but accelerated in 1999, when then Governor Gray Davis increased pension benefits at the same time lowered retirement ages as CALPERS (California Public Employee Retirement System) insisted this change would not affect the general fund and could be sustained.
They were wrong and now the taxpayers are the ones having to make up the shortfall. If nothing is done to solve this ticking time bomb California will first have to shore up the pension system before any other expenditure can be made.
This means before funding to schools, to senior’s and other entities, it will first have to shore up the unfunded pension systems. Right now California is doing what it is famous for putting its head in the sand hoping it goes away.
We need real change in Sacramento and across the nation! What is happening in Greece will be coming to America; to our peril!
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