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Saturday, April 7, 2007

Blaming state workers for the woes of Kentucky’s pension system is too easy.

These employees simply take advantage of a system that doles out exorbitant benefits at taxpayer expense. Like most would, state workers exercise self-interest when anyone talks about making significant changes to their pension. And why wouldn’t they?

The system offers a loaded benefits package that includes early retirement, eternal job security – and seemingly every other Monday off.

But the question is, “Why should those on the state-government payroll receive a Cadillac plan, when the taxpayers footing the bill often cannot even afford basic health-insurance or retirement plans?”

Not true? Not really.

U.S. Census Bureau data shows that 556,000 Kentuckians – nearly 14 percent of all state residents – have no health-insurance plan. That’s not a Ford or a Buick, and it’s certainly not a Cadillac. That’s “footin’ it.”

Meanwhile, an additional 1.25 million Kentuckians – 31 percent of the population – receive money from government-funded programs such as Medicaid.

Information released last year by the Kentucky Health Insurance Research Project makes it obvious that the commonwealth’s pension and health-care systems for current and retired state workers are as unfair as they are costly. The report reveals a startling irony: 48 percent of uninsured Kentuckians are between 35 and 64 years old. And the fact that the report identifies 83 percent of Kentuckians in this category as “the working poor” makes it clear they don’t sit around sucking up the dole.

Yes, these workers struggle to make ends meet while also working for their counterparts in the public sector, who often retire and then “double dip” by picking up a second taxpayer-funded paycheck along with a generous pension and free health-care benefits from their first job.

But you cannot blame state workers for taking advantage of a free ride in a Cadillac. Given the opportunity, most would do the same.

You can blame politicians in Frankfort. They could change the make and the model of the pensions system. Yet too many of them would rather scheme to maintain their political power by “riding along” on the votes of state workers, rather than serving the poorest among us.

Contact the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky's free-market think tank, at (270) 782-2140. Read past Shine the Light articles at www.bipps.org.

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