Issue Position: PERS- My Thoughts

Issue Position

I have met with a few unions and public employee political action committees and have been asked the same questions regarding my viewpoints of the PERS system. In each case I am quite sure I have failed to answer in the way they would like me to answer. I don't blame them, especially since they rely upon politicians to keep the program funded. They require politicians to be willing to set new taxes and stipulations on current and future employees in order to ensure continued success of previously promised funds to those who have already retired. This is the start of why the PERS system is a failure to the employees who are beneficiaries to it's benefits.
The whole system is based upon the notion that humans are too lazy to save for their own retirement (which typically they are). It also assumes that government employees are so risk averse that they would rather not be forced to invest in a volatile market and risk losing their funds and in no way would be intelligent enough to manage their own money. Instead they hire union leaders and other money managers to invest the money and when their decisions go bad, rely upon politicians to save the day on the backs of current and future employees.
The whole system is also based upon tenure. It is geared around hiring and keeping employees in the system for a long period in order to reap the full benefits. If they somehow get laid off, get offered a better private job, or just want to do something different, they are stuck with losing those years in Social Security credits and have lost a significant amount of time in retirement opportunity dollars.
It is important for people to have a retirement program in place. By offering any amount of money for retirement, it creates a forced savings program that allows for individuals to have something that they themselves are typically too short-sighted to see. People aren't stupid though and have the ability to manage their own money and make good decisions. People need choice, stability, and growth. There are plenty of ways to achieve these things outside of taxes and can be achieved by creating a savings program for each individual based upon their current incomes. There doesn't have to be a risk of loss of principal either.
The more I write about this subject the more I can include. I don't want to write a novel. To sum up my opinions, I find that the PERS system is a government monopoly that is taking away from those who receive its benefits. It has a huge cost in both legislation and implementation by both those who receive and those who fund in order to keep the program running. There needs to be better education, more responsibility, and better care taken. We must know that "A government powerful enough to give you everything you want, is powerful enough to take it all away." Let's give the power back to the people and allow for the citizens to make the decisions best for them.

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