Remington Shepard: Right Wing Media Spin Recent Vote To Attack All Public Pensions
Right-wing media have used recent votes by California cities to change the pensions public workers will receive to attack all such pensions. In fact pensions for police officers, firefighters, teachers, and other public workers are not bankrupting states, and public pensions shortfalls at best need minor reforms to ensure their solvency. On Tuesday, facing budget shortfalls, voters in San Jose and San Diego California as well as by the Wisconsin recall, they will fight more battles against public sector workers this election cycle. And the right-wing media stands ready to do its part. During the June 7 edition of Fox’s Your World with Neil Cavuto, host Neil Cavuto responded to the San Jose and San Diego votes by promoting cuts in public pensions: CAVUTO: I’m not saying your target those people entirely, but you’ve got to target what is right now the biggest and most ballooning part of public cost across the country, and that tends to be pensions, benefits. It’s unfair, but it’s the reality of the times, I guess. A June 7 Breitbart.com post claimed , “obscene pensions … threaten to bankrupt to the country just like Greece, Italy or Spain” and that pensions and other benefits are “bankrupting America and all 50 of our states.” However, public pensions are not the cause of state and local governments’ budget woes, and radical restructuring of those pensions is generally not necessary to make them healthy. In a May 2011 report , the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities (CBPP) found that “[s]tate economies and budgets continue to struggle because of shrunken revenues and higher needs” and that: “long-term pension shortfalls are not the cause of current state fiscal problems.”
Visit site:
Remington Shepard: Right Wing Media Spin Recent Vote To Attack All Public Pensions