What is 'old' to you?

It's the social programs we can't afford. A local lumber mill closed last month, they sited a workmens comp insurance bill of US$1.2 million, up from US$500K for 100 employees. Plus every state agency wants to asess them a new fee.

The real problem is that the tax payers won't pay for the communist society that the legislators sell to buy votes.

Reply to
Michael Kelly
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In the first place, almost every state is in budget trouble; California is just the worst example.

In the second place, I agree that the problem is the legislation that we got because the benefits (the "up" side) sounded so good. An example: My sister lives in California and she just retired. In Ca, the state will now pay for her health insurance for the rest of her life. She worked for the state and she thought this was perfectly normal. I know this doesn't happen here. Does it happen in any other states?

Social entitlements like this certainly do sound great until it comes time to pay for them. When the economy is in great shape it's relatively easy to pay for such things, but a declining economy drastically reduces state revenues, making it hard to live up to their expenditures.

The real problem is that no one was willing to admit that a budget that was just barely balanced in good times was a sure thing to run deficits eventually. Unless you believe that it's possible to completely do away with swings in the economy.

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----------------------------------------------- Jim Adney snipped-for-privacy@vwtype3.org Madison, WI 53711 USA

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Reply to
Jim Adney

.....................Good post Jim. State employees along with most other county & municipality employees (and their dependents) in NY also get full medical benefits for life. My private employer makes me pay $600/month for Blue Cross-Blue Shield (houshold of five). It's the difference in cost with the bare bones HMO that they also offer without charge. After retirement, I'm on my own except of course for Medicaid/Medicare. The civil service laws & regs. are an albatross around the neck of us average, private sector tax payers.

Reply to
Tim Rogers

try being able to afford health insureance while being "self-employed"....not cheap...i used to pay what you do per month for insurance on just myself...

------------------- Chris Perdue

*All opinions are those of the author of this post* "Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug"
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reply take your PANTS off
Reply to
Chris Perdue

The only way to come out even is to own stock in the insurance companies. Then you can cheer the moment your stock dividends come in, then cry again when you get your next medical bill which is higher to reflect the desires of the stockholder.

See how it works? Sucks for _all_ of us.

Reply to
jjs

Jim Adney wrote: > An

That's probably not all she gets, my dad retired with 34 years, he got

3% retirement pay for each year of service, and the health insurance to boot. They gave him 99% pay (the max), plus he gets SSI*. He's making more money now than when he was working. * For our non-US friends, SSI is Social Security Insurance, US workers pay in 7.4% for about US$40,000 in their lifetimes (the employeer pays another 7.4%, so the employee thinks his boss is getting screwed too), US Congress squanders/borrows the money at very low interest, then the receipents collect US$15K per year in benefits when they reach 62 years old. The whole SSI thing is a big ponze or pyramid scheme, which will fall apart about the time I retire in 2017.
Reply to
Michael Kelly

You're right, of course. This was just in addition to the retirement pension.

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----------------------------------------------- Jim Adney snipped-for-privacy@vwtype3.org Madison, WI 53711 USA

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Reply to
Jim Adney

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