More than 6,400 Mass employees make over $100K

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Fly Rod

Jim, the bottom line is that you had an opprutunity at one time as we all did to apply for work with the city, state or feds, you being a vet would have started out with four weeks paid vacation for time served in the military and on your way to a pension, apparently you chose another path of employment. Get over it, build a houseboat(no property taxes) kiss a mailperson, fireperson, a female that is.

No, Fly Rod, that's not the bottom line. I'm pretty comfortable, never said I wasn't. I went into actuarial science for the $$ and so I'd be home every day at 4:30.

The botom line is this. The cost of those benefits is crippling state and local governments, and taxpayers who aren't as lucky as I am will soon be forced to make enormous sacrifices so that these unionized municipal employees can continue to cling to these insane benefits. There is a reason those benefits don't exist in the private sector anymore. Those union benefits literally destroyed the auto industry in this country. I don't want my town or your town to resemble Flint, Michigan, just so cops can retire at age 45 with a guaranteed pension for life. And that's where we are headed.

If you're OK with that scenario, i would be interested to know why. If you don't think those benefits are resulting in staggering debt, please show me data to support that. But stop trying to distract attention away from the issue at hand by posting that I'm jealous.

I hate everything about muncipal unions (I served time on my town's BOE, I know exactly how they operate, witgh tactics that would have impressed Vito Corleone. Every time I brought up the subject of 401(k)s, the union rep would claim that I hate children). I'm not jeaolous of them...I'm not jealous of anyone who greedily takes what belongs to others. I have nothing but contempt for those parasites, and the politicians who lay down for them.

Fly Rod, I'll "get over it" when my property taxes stop going up 10% a year. I'll get over it when public employees stop forcing taxpayers to choose between paying property taxes and buying food and medicine.

Public service is supposed to be for those who hear a call to serve, not for those looking for the surest path to wealth.