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Cut Pensions? Not Right Now

To The Editor:

Much has been made in the current economic meltdown of the huge costs of the municipal employee pensions.

What's most curious is the claim that the city (and, to a lesser extent, the state) must do something Right This Very Moment, namely implementing a new, and lower-benefit, pension plan for new workers.

Sounds kind of like those door-todoor salesmen we were warned about. Or the Wall Street apologists who got a trillion dollars, with few strings, during a similar "emergency" situation a few months ago.

Anytime someone tells you "you've got to do this Right Now," alarm bells should go off.

In the case of municipal pensions, the fact of the matter is that all current employees are, and will stay, in their current pension tiers. Accordingly it would be roughly 20 years before any pension cutbacks have any financial effect.

It's certainly something that can, and should, be addressed through municipal bargaining, but it also isn't an emergency situation that's going to make any near-term budgetary difference.

The people making these claims know better, which makes one wonder why they're screaming so desperately for immediate action.

DANNY BURSTEIN

Editor's note: The writer was a city paramedic, and for a short time, a union treasurer.