Pension costs to rise

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review story on the rising costs of government-sector employee pensions.

While the private sector recognized long ago the need to move away from “defined benefit” to “defined contribution” plans, the government sector has only made them more lucrative. At the expense of the taxpayers, of course.

As major “defined-benefit-era” corporations continue to go down (think: General Motors, the steel industry, the airline industry), there is no talk about changing that archaic system in Harrisburg. In fact, when a crisis loomed a few years ago, the politicians just “refinanced” the pension obligation over more years.

One of these days, however, clever accounting will no longer work…not even for politicians.