pensions

House Republicans signaled support Wednesday for a budget deal worked out a day earlier, a plan narrowly drawn but promoted as a way to stabilize Congress' erratic fiscal efforts, avert another government shutdown and mute some of the partisan rancor that has damaged Americans' attitudes about their lawmakers.

Three U.S. Senators recently introduced a bill to eliminate defined benefit plans for federal fire fighters and other government employees. Contrary to the bill’s name — the Public-Private Employee Retirement Parity Act — the legislation would clearly do nothing to create parity among public and private retirement systems, forcing federal fire fighters to rely solely on an expensive and unpredictable 401(K)-style system.

In an op-ed for USA Today, David Sirota gives credit to conservative activists, business groups, and politicians for their attempts to demonize public pensions. But this well-coordinated attempt to sway public opinion, he writes, should not result in pensions being “reformed.” For many state and local governments, wasteful spending and unnecessary giveaways to corporations are causing more financial uncertainty than pensions ever could.

A new investigation uncovers the misdeeds of Rhode Island General Treasurer Gina Raimondo during her handling of the state’s Employee Retirement System. The report charges that Raimondo’s investment strategy is a lose-lose: “alternative investments both reduce returns and increase risk” and that probable candidate for governor is selling out Rhode Island’s public workers for an “opportunity to enrich herself and her hedge fund backers.”

It's official. San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, a career politician with backing from a Texas billionaire and former Enron trader, has filed a ballot measure to strip away retirement security from current teachers, firefighters, sanitation workers and other public servants.

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi joins us in studio to explain how a former Enron commodity trader wants to destroy pension plans across the country, why Rhode Island is at the forefront of pension "reform" policies, why pension "reforms" are passing public funds into the hands of Hedge Funds, why Wall Street and crony capitalism caused the pension crisis, the single biggest scam devised by Wall Street, why if you are in the Hedge Fund business you never lose and why Unions are beginning to recognize the pension scam.

With Detroit’s finances looking increasingly dire, the city’s creditors are beginning to face off with one another, each trying to minimize their losses. The city’s pension fund, which supports retired city workers, has found itself in direct conflict with a formidable opponent, the bondholders, individuals and institutions that gave the city money in order to enjoy the interest on the loan.

Some 3,000 Texas American Federation of Teachers (AFT) members converged on the state capitol Tuesday from all across Texas to lobby their legislators to restore school funding.