theprof00 said:
Yeah, but it's fully funded for a ridiculous length of time based on employees who may not ever retire or reach pension. It's not even based on how many workers they have...it's just a flat 5.5B every year for 75 years. It's outrageous. And even then, you have to factor in inflation, so the money you prepay today is worth vastly more than the same amount 40 years down the line....even MA-rep R Scott Brown calls it unfair and irresponsible to have them paying this much. Or am I misinformed about this? Your link seems to suggest that "Going forward, the Postal Service should be expected to cover the normal cost of retiree health care, paying a little bit more than it is right now, but far less than what Congress has obligated it to pay" |
Somewhat misinformed yes. What the article was trying to get across is basically everyone who had retired up until 2006 had NOTHING in their retirement funds.
It's a flat 5.5B every year for 10 years because that's how much it's projected is needed to cover those people who have already retired as well as those likely to.
If instead of it being a general "Retirement fund" that prefunds everyone an equal amount like a pool of water. It prefunded in order of seniority like a number of lined up glasses, the amount of money poured wouldn't yet fill the glasses of everyone who is retired, let alone everyone who will at some point retire.
It still doesn't even cover what they owe the current retirees in earned benefits.
As for Scott Brown. It doesn't surprise me he would say that. He seems pretty on the level about what he believes in... and this is a clear "reversed issue for poltiical gain" moment.
When the Bill passed in the house it was a bi-partisan vote that didn't require a roll call but it had around 104 Democratic Co-Sponsers to 58 Republican ones. One Republican wanted a roll call, presumibly because he was against the bill... but he was denied.
It passed unanimously in the senate. (That is, nobody that was their, including Harry Reid had any objection to it's passing."
If you pay attention to what the post office wants, part of it is legally forced aribitration to more or less bust the Post Office Unions.
Outside a few conservatives in the house this was pretty much a shoe in.
