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So Much For The Golden Years |
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THE CONSERVATIVE VIEW
BY RUSSELL TURNER
SO MUCH FOR THE
GOLDEN YEARS?
Many Americans have worked their entire lives for
one company or for the government. Many are relying upon retirement plans to
help them in their later years. It is very easy for us to be like an ostrich
and bury our heads in the sand and not face the hard facts that will affect
most if not all Americans in the future.
Many workers have gone to work for the government
and made their careers there because the politicians promised them that they
would have good retirement benefits for their old age. The
March 24, 2006 report from the Oklahoma Pension
Oversight Commission (OPOC) entitled “Crisis in the Oklahoma State Pension
Systems” stated that Oklahoma’s pension systems are in a state of serious
financial crisis. The report went on to point out that “Oklahoma has more than
$10 billion in current unfunded liabilities in its pension system. The bulk of
this debt is in the Oklahoma Teachers Retirement System (OTRS), which has
$7.673 billion in unfunded liabilities. The retirement promises were made to
retired or currently employed teachers, state employees, firefighters, and law
enforcement officers.
You may ask, who will
have to pay for these insolvent retirement plans? According to the State
Attorney General, it is the taxpayers of Oklahoma. As bad as the unfunded
liabilities sound, they may even be bigger than the current number of $10
billion. With breakthroughs in medicine, people are living longer and
politicians are eager to buy votes with additional benefits that will add to
the deficit.
For years our
government, on both national and state levels, has borrowed from pension funds
“such as Social Security” and diverted that money to other agencies and
branches of government. For a long time, our government has relied upon a
large working class to keep the systems above water, but that water is about
to get a little deeper.
America’s workers are
getting older; the baby-boomers are starting to retire. The ratio of the
retirees to the younger worker is getting larger. We are racing to a time
where the younger workers will not be able to keep the systems afloat.
Politicians would rather not have to deal with these problems, but we citizens
need to realize the seriousness of the problem. If we as individuals don’t
deal with the problem, our golden years may be a little more on the blue
side.
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