Everybody Who Thinks McConnell Is Going to Help These Coal Miners, Stand On Your Head

I sincerely hope they are trolling Senator Motherfucker, because they are morons if they think he gives a flying fuck about them.

From the Herald:

Because a pension fund for thousands of coal miners faces insolvency within three years, a contingent of retired coal workers will descend on the Capitol Wednesday, hoping to convince Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to back a fix.

It’s the ninth consecutive year the group has pressed Congress to act — but McConnell wants a broader fix to ensure the health of the federally chartered Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which insures millions of Americans in defined benefits pension plans but is facing its own fiscal challenges.

“There is momentum to fix the entire system, but that’s going to move slowly,” said Phil Smith, director of government affairs for the United Mine Workers of America. “Our plan is separate because we can’t wait for a global pension fix.”

Smith said the slump in the coal industry and company bankruptcies have hurt the pension fund, which now has just one major company, Murray Energy, contributing to the fund.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, who is sponsoring legislation to address the coal miners’ pensions and will appear Wednesday at a press conference to push his legislation, said Tuesday he wants a more sweeping fix, but worries about the immediate risk for the retired coal workers and their families.

“I don’t know how he can just turn his back on the miners in Kentucky and West Virginia,” Manchin said of McConnell in an interview Tuesday. “He just can’t continue to stonewall them and leave them with nothing.”

As if The Treason Turtle has ever done anything BUT stonewall working Kentuckians and leave them with nothing.

Of course he will stonewall them.  And of course every single one of them who is still alive after their pensions are taken away is going to vote for Bevin this fall and McConnell and Trump next year.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article230129654.html#storylink=cpy

Greedy Pigs of Legislature Stealing Real Workers' Pensions

This is blatant, daylight theft.  State employees with 30 years of full-time service are lucky to get barely $2,000 per month in retirement, and they won't get even that if the repugs get their way and eliminate the broken state pension system.

Meanwhile, part-time legislators - 60 days per year, or 1/5 of a full-time job - are pulling down retirement checks five times the size of a real worker's retirement check.

 

And when I say "real workers" and "state employees," I mean the cops and firefighters who put their lives on the line. I mean the social workers who protect children from abuse.  I mean the engineers  who get roads paved and the park rangers who keep the trails clear and the park housekeepers and cooks who keep the lodge always ready. I mean the tax auditors who keep people honest and the corrections officers who guard the ones who aren't.  I mean all the people who make Kentucky livable.

From the Herald:

As the General Assembly resumes its debate over pensions — who should get one, who shouldn’t and how should Kentucky pay for what’s owed — public records show that some of state government’s larger pensions belong to current and former legislators, who serve part-time at the Capitol.

There are 186 retired legislators drawing pensions from their own separately managed retirement system, with an average annual payout of $23,934. (They also get free health insurance for themselves and their dependents.) By comparison, the average payout from the largest pension fund for retired state government workers is $21,587. For retired local government workers, it’s $11,739.

But those are just rank-and-file averages. Thanks to a pension-sweetening law the General Assembly passed for itself in 2005, nearly two dozen past and present legislators collect or expect to get lifetime pensions above $50,000 a year — roughly twice the state’s per capita income. And that’s on top of whatever retirement plans they’ve made elsewhere in their full-time jobs.

Members of the $50,000 club include Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, who is in line to collect $56,448 a year when he retires, and former House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, who is drawing $77,196 a year as he runs for attorney general.

And unlike Kentucky’s primary state workers’ pension system, which is only 13 percent funded, the publicly subsidized legislators’ pension system is 98 percent funded.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article225417540.html#storylink=cpy

SNIP

 

Thanks to a pension-sweetening law the General Assembly passed for itself in 2005, nearly two dozen past and present legislators collect or expect to get lifetime pensions above $50,000 a year — roughly twice the state’s per capita income. And that’s on top of whatever retirement plans they’ve made elsewhere in their full-time jobs.

 

Members of the $50,000 club include Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, who is in line to collect $56,448 a year when he retires, and former House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, who is drawing $77,196 a year as he runs for attorney general.

It gets worse.  Way worse.  It ends with a list of legislators drawing more than $50,000 a year from Kentucky's taxpayers, most of whom earn far less for far more and harder work.

More Proof Bevin Wants to Bankrupt Kentucky

This is not rocket science West Virginia tried forcing their state workers into the stock market, only to see their retirement revenues plummet toward bankruptcy.  Returning to a defined-benefit pension plan restored the retirement system to solvency.

But bankrupting the retirement system in Kentucky is Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You's goal.

 

From the Herald:

A national credit rating agency said Thursday that proposed changes to Kentucky’s troubled pension systems are unlikely to affect the state’s credit rating, contradicting claims made by Gov. Matt Bevin as he pushed lawmakers to pass a pension bill during a December special session.

Fitch, a credit rating agency based in New York City, said the state’s ability to maintain full funding for pensions and eliminating its reliance on one-time money to fund ongoing programs are the most crucial factors in its credit-rating of the state, not the proposed changes to the pension systems.

“Even if the legislature and governor enact replacement legislation, Fitch anticipates further litigation,” the agency wrote, referencing the recent Kentucky Supreme Court ruling that struck down a pension overhaul bill lawmakers passed last spring. “Given the modest savings anticipated, the proposed pension benefit changes, and any related litigation, would not affect the state’s rating.”

The report contradicts the urgency Bevin claimed when he unexpectedly called the legislature into special session last month the week before Christmas.

He's already ripped health care away from hundred of thousands of Kentuckians, wrecking the pension system is going to be dessert.

"Inept, arrogant and weak"

Joe Gerth at the Courier nails Gov. Sociopathic Narcissist:

With the stunning failure Tuesday night of Gov. Matt Bevin’s special session, the Louisville Republican cemented his place in the history books as the most inept, most arrogant and one of the weakest governors in Kentucky’s history.

It was his ineptness that caused him to pick fights with the General Assembly that didn’t need to be fought.

It was his hubris that caused him to call the legislature into session without its consent.

And it was his weakness that allowed the General Assembly — of which his Republicans hold supermajorities in both houses — to walk out on him after being in session less than 24 hours.  

There hasn’t been a weaker governor since the Democratic legislature stripped powers from Republican Gov. "Flim-Flam" Flem Sampson in the 1920s and gave them to a three-member commission composed of Sampson and the Democratic lieutenant governor and attorney general.

Bevin still has considerable power that comes with being governor — especially in a power vacuum created when the legislature goes home — but compared to other governors, he's now the 97-pound weakling in an old Charles Atlas ad.

He’s weaker now than former Democratic Gov. Paul Patton was following the revelation in 2002 of an affair with a Western Kentucky nursing home operator that almost toppled him during his second term.

Weaker even than former Democratic Gov. Brereton Jones was after he appeared on KET during the 1994 legislative session to denounce Democratic leadership when his budget and health care proposal appeared dead.

SNIP

The state's festering budget crisis was built over decades by politicians of both parties, and is by no means solely Bevin's fault.

But the feckless and arrogant decision to call legislators into session without their consent — just one week before the Yuletide? That's all Bevin's.

Lege spanks Baby Bevin, sends to room without dinner

Bevin is KY repugs' dream come true.  That they have defied him this way bodes very ill for Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You's re-election campaign next year.

From the Herald:

Ignoring the pleas of Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, the Kentucky General Assembly voted Tuesday night to end the surprise special legislative session Bevin called Monday afternoon to address the state’s ailing public pension systems.

In a passionate speech to the House of Representatives, Speaker Pro-Tempore David Osborne, R-Prospect, said the decision to go home without passing a bill reflected a lack of time and conflicting opinions among the Republican caucus about how exactly to change the pension systems.

“We cannot shirk this, we cannot run from this. But this was not a problem that was created overnight ...” Osborne said. “We cannot solve it within the confines of a 5-day session.”

His announcement was greeted with applause from audience members in the gallery.

Osborne then promised to preside over the “ultimate solution to this problem,” presumably during the regular 2019 General Assembly, which begins January 8.

Outside his office, Bevin told reporters the legislature’s inability to pass a bill could put retirees’ pension checks in jeopardy.

“It should be of great concern to the taxpayers,” Bevin said. “It should of great concern, certainly, to the people who worked for the state and who were promised a pension. The odds of them getting that pension just went down dramatically tonight. It has got to be a priority or those people are up the creek.”

No state has ever defaulted on its pension system. Public pension experts say the most likely course is that all other state funding would be squeezed to honor the obligations.

Bevin's a lying motherfucking piece of shit.  Public pensions are constitutional obligations in Kentucky.  They'll shut down every agency of state government before they stop pension checks.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article223287120.html#storylink=cpy

Defeated Bevin Cheating Again

Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You is not going to let some state Supreme Court decision stop him from fucking over teachers, state workers and everybody who is not as obscenely rich as he is.

He doesn't have the votes legally and in broad daylight, so he's scurrying around in the dark to get the vile deed done before his targets can get organized.

From the Herald:

Kentucky lawmakers rushed to Frankfort Monday evening for a special legislative session that started at 8 p.m., just four hours after Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin made a surprise announcement that he would convene them to deal with Kentucky’s struggling pension system.

“I am going to use the powers that have been granted to me to call the legislature into special session that will be effective tonight at eight o’clock,” Bevin said in a brief statement. “They will be coming in.”

Shortly after 11 p.m., two pension overhaul bills were introduced, both sponsored by Rep. Jerry Miller, R-Louisville, the chairman of the House State Government Committee. The committee will hold a hearing on the bills Tuesday at 1 p.m. Miller said there will be no vote taken Tuesday on the bills.

Also from the Herald:

School teachers, public employees and their supporters quickly mobilized Monday after Republican Gov. Matt Bevin called a special session of the Kentucky legislature to make changes to the state’s pension systems, giving them only four hours notice.

“I think we’ll see at least as good a crowd as we did the night they passed the sewage bill in the first place,” said Jessica Hiler, president of the Fayette County Education Association.

Advocacy groups said they were scrambling to get their members to the Capitol in time to protest the special session, which was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. Anyone who couldn’t make it to Frankfort was urged to call their lawmakers and demand that they adjourn immediately, the groups said.

It would have been better had lawmakers waited until the 2019 General Assembly convened in three weeks so an open, deliberative process involving all interested parties could be used to craft a better pension bill, the groups said.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article223225420.html#storylink=cpy

Bevin and Republican legislative leaders evidently hope to rush a recycled pension bill through the legislative process the week before Christmas before most Kentuckians can understand its contents, said Nema Brewer, co-founder of KY 120 United.

“This is how cowards run a government,” Brewer said. “They’re just raw because they got their hands slapped by the Kentucky Supreme Court for passing a pension bill the last time that was unconstitutional. But we’re headed to Frankfort. We’ll have a presence there. And we’re not happy.”

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article223225420.html#storylink=cpy

KY Repugs Cheating to Get Court Wins

Never occurs to them that Judge Shepherd rules against them all the time because they are always wrong. They never consider maybe they should stop passing unconstitutional legislation, and stop breaking laws to get that legislation passed.

No, their solution is to take state cases away from that mean old liberal judge.

From Tom Loftus at the Courier:

Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd’s order striking down the new Republican-backed pension law led to a lot of criticism from majority-party leaders, including from the governor himself.

Now, some of those leaders are looking at ways to keep all the important state government cases from going to Franklin Circuit Court.

“You basically have a super circuit judge, or judges, because the venue for so many cases are exclusively here. And that shouldn’t be,” Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, said in an interview.

Stivers made the point on Friday as part of a panel discussion at the Health Care Leadership Conference of the Kentucky Hospital Association.

House Speaker Pro Tem David Osborne, R-Prospect, said during the discussion he sees support for the idea. “You’ll see some continued discussion and talk about this…But there are a lot of details that have to be worked out that haven’t been, so it’s a little bit tough to say where it’s going.”

State Sen. Morgan McGarvey, a Louisville Democrat who – like Stivers – is an attorney, said he believes any such move “would be blatantly political and an abuse of legislative power.”

Shepherd, who has served as a Franklin circuit judge since 2006, declined to comment on the matter.

 That's because whiny-ass titty babies are beneath his contempt.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article221607280.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article221607280.html#storylink=cpy

Bevin Determined to Lose Re-Election

You don't piss off the people who cook/serve your food or who cut your hair.  And you don't deliver public, deadly insults to the judge who handles all the lawsuits against your maladministration.

From the Herald:

Gov. Matt Bevin went after a Kentucky judge Tuesday, the day after that judge ruled against Bevin's procedural motion in a lawsuit over Kentucky's new pension law.

"I now have the most incompetent hack of a judge — I don't know if in Kentucky, but certainly one of the worst — who happens to be in Franklin Circuit Court," Bevin said in a radio interview on 55KRC, a talk radio station in Cincinnati.

On Monday, Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd ruled in a 30-minute hearing that Bevin's attorneys could not depose representatives of Attorney General Andy Beshear's office, the Kentucky Education Association and the Kentucky Fraternal Order of Police.

The three parties filed a lawsuit April 11 against the state's new public pension law.

Because anyone and everyone who disagrees with Dear Leader is an idiot and a traitor.

Maybe it's just a giant, long-term piece of performance art.

And the Teachers Are Leading Us

Holy Shit. Buses packed with teachers and students from all over Kentucky bringing traffic to a standstill; not a parking place to found within a mile of the Capitol.  The crowd is the biggest I have ever seen at the Capitol.  The signs are the BEST.

Live updates at the Herald.

Rejecting Tax Plan Proves KY Repugs Want to Kill Pensions, Not Save Them

Oh, look, guys:  an actual tax reform plan that raises $600 million to save employee pensions while preserving essential programs and making the greedhead rich start paying their fair share.

But no.  That's not what the repugs who own KY state government want.  They want an excuse to to the state economy into Haiti. Destroying the lives of 35,000 state employees is just gravy.

From the Herald:

State Rep. James Kay, D-Versailles, last week filed a package of five bills that could collect more than $600 million a year in fresh revenue for Kentucky’s ailing public pension systems with taxes on tobacco, prescription opiates and outsourced labor and potentially raise even more money by scrutinizing the state’s long-unexamined tax breaks.

But Kay’s plan appears dead on arrival.

House Speaker Pro Tem David Osborne, R-Prospect, on Friday said the Republican-led House of Representatives won’t consider any bills during this legislative session that simply raise additional revenue — not even for the state’s $40 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.

SNIP

In an interview outside Osborne’s Capitol office, Kay said he isn’t surprised that his bills are doomed. For all of the talk of a “pension crisis” in Frankfort, Republican leaders in the General Assembly won’t consider anyone’s ideas but their own, which focus on cutting retirement benefits for teachers and other public workers, he said.
 

“I’ve worked on this comprehensive plan for three years,” said Kay, who is a member of the Public Pension Oversight Board.

“I presented this plan in its raw form to the pension oversight board, and it got no response,” Kay said. “I presented this plan to House leadership; same reaction. The current approach is to cut benefits and not to raise revenue. They don’t want to look at anything that’s outside of that box. They want to solve this problem on the backs of state employees and teachers.”

James Kay for Governor, goddammit.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article199676599.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article199676599.html#storylink=cpy

AG: Crafting KY Pension Deform In Secret Was Illegal

If it's done in secret, you can be sure it's something that voters will hate.  As proven by the universal outcry against it the instant this fuck-the-teachers plan hit oxygen.

John Cheves at the Herald:

The Kentucky House of Representatives violated the state’s Open Meetings Act with a closed-door conference in August where lawmakers from both parties huddled to discuss their plans to deal with the state’s pension shortfall, Attorney General Andy Beshear’s office announced Monday.

The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a free-market think tank based in Lexington, challenged the legality of the private House meeting, arguing that the public should be able to watch anytime the House conducts business. The attorney general — whose opinion carries the force of law on open meetings and open records issues — sided with the Bluegrass Institute.

“A quorum of the House was present,” Assistant Attorney General Matt James wrote. “In closing the meeting to the public without an authorized exception, the House violated the Open Meetings Act.”

In its response to the Bluegrass Institute’s appeal, an attorney for the House said the entire legislative body did not technically meet that day. Rather, it was “a meeting of the House majority caucus, which was open to members of the House minority caucus,” and “both of these entities are specifically exempt” from the Open Meetings Act, the attorney argued.

That was a stretch, legally speaking, said Jim Waters, president of the Bluegrass Institute.

“They have no right to shut the people out of their discussions,” Waters said. “The formation of public policy is just as important as what the final policy turns out to be. And it’s important to remember that the open meetings law is something the legislature has imposed on other public entities to follow.”

Only one lawmaker walked out of the Aug. 29 pension meeting to protest the fact that it was behind conducted in secret — state Rep. Jim Wayne, D-Louisville.

Shame on the dems who did not follow Wayne out the door.

The punishment for violating Kentucky's Open Meetings Act is 30 days in the public stocks.

Sigh, of course not.  At very worst, the repugs will have to release video or audio recordings of the meetings.  Which could be illuminating.  But not as much fun as throwing rotten tomatoes at their faces.

No, Governor Craven Heartless Worm, Hoover Resigning Will Not Save Your Pension Deform

UPDATE:  Jeffy's out, and the repugs are scrambling.

Funny how Governor Carpetbagger never mentioned the sexual harassment rampant throughout the legislature and the executive branch until it started to endanger his plans to strip Kentucky's economy down to bedrock.

Also, he better be sure he never so much as let his eyes drop below a woman's neck in his entire life, because otherwise this hypocritical bullshit is going to have his victims lining up to sue his ass.

Jack Brammer at the Herald:

Gov. Matt Bevin, making his first public comments on a sexual harassment scandal that has rocked the state House of Representatives, called Saturday for “the immediate resignation of every individual who has settled a sexual harassment case, who is a party to trying to hide this type of behavior.”

Bevin, in a hastily called news conference in the Capitol Rotunda, mentioned no one by name. The Republican governor called the allegations serious and reprehensible.

“These alleged actions, which haven’t been denied, are reprehensible, indefensible and unacceptable. Any elected official or state employee who has settled a sexual harassment claim should resign immediately,” Bevin said. “The people of Kentucky deserve better. We appropriately demand a high level of integrity from our leaders, and will tolerate nothing less in our state.”

He added: “You either publicly condemn or you publicly condone this type of behavior.”

 Bevin made the public statement after Republican Rep. C. Wesley Morgan of Richmond had called Saturday for the resignation of Kentucky House Speaker Jeff Hoover, accusing him and party leaders of concealing sexual harassment allegations against Hoover and three other Republican legislators.
 
SNIP

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article182770501.html#storylink=cpy

In a statement Saturday night, Hoover accused Bevin of “grandstanding” and said he is “more resolved than ever to continue my work as Speaker.” He said he supported the request by other GOP House leaders for an independent review.

SNIP

Bevin took no questions and did not say how the scandal might affect his desire to call a special legislative session this year to make changes in Kentucky’s public retirement systems.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Buy popcorn futures.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article182770501.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article182770501.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article182770501.html#storylink=cpy

Governor Condescending Elitist Lectures the Rubes

Last week it was scolding a teacher leader for daring to exercise his rights of free assembly to hold a rally at the Capitol.

Now he's sneering at his opponents for being too "unsophisticated" to understand his genius plan for stripping Kentucky's economy down to bedrock before he launches his presidential campaign.

Keep it up, Gov. Craven Heartless Worm.  Just like your idol in the White House, every word out of your lying mouth opens more voting eyes to what you really are.

From the Herald:

Opponents of a plan to reform Kentucky’s ailing pension systems lack “the sophistication to understand what’s at stake,” Gov. Matt Bevin said Monday as he urged Lexington’s business leaders to publicly support his proposal.

“The fact of the matter is, this is not good for Kentucky,” Bevin said of the state’s pension crisis. “The people who do not have the sophistication to understand what’s at stake, but will bear the brunt of it, are the ones that are going to suffer if people like us who get it, who are willing to fight for it, don’t step up.”

Bevin’s public push to win over business support for his plan comes as public employees express fierce opposition.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article181743536.html#storylink=cpy

SNIP

Last week, the Kentucky Education Association held several forums where teachers confronted state lawmakers about the plan, which would require school teachers and state and local government employees to pay an additional 3 percent of their salaries into their retiree health insurance funds, shift most future workers into 401(k)-style investment plans and freeze cost-of-living increases for retired teachers for five years.

After promising teachers in Madison County that he wouldn’t vote for a bill that adversely affected them, state Rep. Wesley Morgan of Richmond became the first Republican to publicly announce he would not support the bill.

“I will not go along to get along,” Morgan posted on Twitter. “I will do what is right for my constituents. This is just one example of me keeping that promise.”

This isn't Connecticut, Gov. Carpetbagger.  The majority of voters you need are working people who don't have a family trust fund to support us in our old age.

You are not only going to lose this pension fight, you're going to lose reelection in two years, too.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article181743536.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article181743536.html#storylink=cpy

Bevin Lying About Retiree Health Insurance, Too.

Somebody ask him about his morning bowel movements.  I bet he can't tell the truth about that, either.

From Kentucky Center for Economic Policy:

Additional Contribution for Retiree Health Benefits Is an Unnecessary Wage Cut

By Jason Bailey
October 24, 2017

 

The state’s proposed framework for pension legislation would require public employees to pay three percent more of their salaries toward retiree health benefits, the effect of which is the same as a three percent cut in wages. However, Kentucky’s retiree health plans are much better funded than most similar plans around the country, and the resources available for the plans are growing rapidly without the need for extra contributions from public employees who are already undercompensated.

If the new contribution applies to all current employees, it would cut wages by approximately $158 million annually for state workers (including teachers) and another $85 million for local workers — and many of these employees have not received raises for much of the last decade. For a teacher who spends 27 years in the classroom at present-day salaries, the 3 percent contribution would mean the loss of about $40,000 in lifetime income.

Kentucky’s retiree health plans are already far better funded than most around the nation

Kentucky’s retiree health plans are in much better condition than most similar plans across the country. Combined, the Kentucky Retirement Systems (KRS) and Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS) retiree health plans have 47.9 percent of the assets they need to pay future benefits. Several of Kentucky’s plans are actually overfunded, with the Kentucky Employees Retirement System (KERS) hazardous retiree health plan holding 125 percent of the assets it needs, the legislators’ plan holding 127 percent and the judicial plan holding 105 percent.

In contrast, the Center for Retirement Research reports state and local retiree health plans across the U.S. are only 7 percent funded in the aggregate. And as the state’s consultant PFM noted, Standard and Poor’s recently reported that the median funded ratio for state retiree health plans in 2015 is actually zero percent, because most states have not been pre-funding this obligation. Kentucky has been far more aggressive than most other states in putting monies into its retiree health plans.

Gov. Craven Heartless Worm Throws Trumpie Trantrum Over Pension Truths

Just like his Dear Leader the Orange Loser, Bevin can't deal with anyone criticizing him, especially when the critics are right in pointing out the lies and corruption.

Bruce Schreiner at the AP: 

Gov. Matt Bevin fired back Tuesday at critics of a GOP plan to revamp Kentucky’s chronically underfunded public pension systems, saying they have no alternatives and warning that doing nothing is a “path to insolvency.”

Speaking to a business group, Bevin said structural changes are needed to sustain the pension systems.

“Everybody would love to ignore it - all the fear mongers and the ‘chicken littles’ - the ‘sky-is-falling’ crowd that are just so upset about the fact that anything is changing,” the Republican governor said. “And yet the path we’re on is literally a direct path to insolvency financially.”

His comments came a day after Kentucky Education Association President Stephanie Winkler warned the pension plan would “devastate” public education.

Don't lie to teachers, gubner: they will always catch you out and make you pay for it.

New Report Exposes Pension Lies

Yep, the only thing Gov. Craven Heartless Worm's pension deform will do is bankrupt the Commonwealth while enriching his Wall Street buddies.

 

John Cheves at the Herald:

Sweeping changes recommended for Kentucky’s public pension systems would cost taxpayers and public employees more money while making public employment far less attractive to future generations, according to a report released Monday.

In the report, Colorado-based consultant Pension Trustee Advisors said ideas put forward by Republican Gov. Matt Bevin’s advisers at the PFM Group in August would only worsen Kentucky’s pension mess. Specifically, PTA said, Kentucky should not switch from a defined-benefits pension for state employees and school teachers to a defined-contribution 401(k) account that might run dry while many of them are still alive.

“Under the proposed analysis, which is based on optimistic returns, well over half of the individuals will run out of money,” William “Flick” Fornia, an actuary who founded PTA in 2010, wrote in the report.

PTA was hired to examine the PFM Group’s recommendations by two groups critical of those proposals, the Kentucky Public Pension Coalition and the Kentucky Retired Teachers Association.

Although the Bevin administration paid the PFM Group nearly $1.2 million for its advice, Republican lawmakers meeting privately with Bevin to draw up a bill for a special legislative session on pensions have said that not everything the PFM Group suggested will be included.

A spokesperson for Bevin did not respond Monday to a request for comment about the report by Pension Trustee Advisors.

Of course not.  The motherfucker has been exposed.  Now the question is whether the repugs running the General Assembly have the guts to tell him to fuck off and die.

Bevin's Pension Plan Will Bankrupt the State

Don't believe me; listen to the states who tried the same plan.

In the 1990s, both West Virginia and Michigan closed public pension plans. West Virginia was first, closing its teacher pension plan in 1991. All new teachers were placed in a 401(k)-style defined contribution plan. In 1997, Michigan closed its traditional pension plan for state government employees. What happened next is a warning to other states or cities considering a similar course.

After closing the pension plan, two things happened in both states: the cost of the plan increased dramatically and retirement security for employees plummeted. As plan costs skyrocketed in West Virginia, the state began studying its options.

In 2003, West Virginia found that providing a pension to teachers cost taxpayers half the amount of a comparable 401(k)-style plan. After 15 years, West Virginia reopened the pension plan for new teachers and gave teachers in the 401(k) plan an option to switch into the pension plan. Over 78 percent of teachers switched to the pension plan.

Michigan, too, has seen plan costs increase and funding levels decrease. But worst of all, Michigan is forcing its state employees to retire into poverty rather than providing a modest, reliable defined benefit.

And yeah, of course Bevin's lying about the real cost.

Kentucky’s General Assembly will need to find an estimated $5.4 billion to fund the pension systems for state workers and school teachers in the next two-year state budget, officials told the Public Pension Oversight Board on Monday.

That amount would be a hefty funding increase and a painful squeeze for a state General Fund that — at about $20 billion over two years — also is expected to pay for education, prisons, social services and other state programs.

It's the fast-track to Kansas and Haiti. Pretend that fatal budget cuts, pension destruction and tax windfalls for the rich will fix Kentucky's finances. Then discover that oops, the Commonwealth can't operate with no money, so sorry, sux to be you, gotta go run for president now.

Bevin's Lying About Pensions. Of Course He's Lying

Yeah, why exactly would you believe Governor "I Got Mine, Fuck You."

He is NOT going to give state workers a grace period to retire before he guts their pensions.

He's saying that now so he can trick more workers into getting stuck with 401k plans that his Wall Street buddies will strip and steal.

This motherfucker liar has lied about everything from day one.  Anybody who believes him now deserves the catastrophe he's got planned for you.

From the Herald:

In a Facebook Live chat with state employees on Monday, Bevin said that any changes he and lawmakers make to Kentucky’s pension plans would not include an “emergency clause,” so they would not take effect immediately upon his signing legislation into law. That would give state employees a few months to decide their best course of action under restructured retirement systems.

Bevin said he expects to call a special legislative session this fall to address the tens of billions of dollars owed by the states’ pension plans.

“I don’t see this going into effect until the top of the year, maybe, at the earliest,” Bevin said. “I would be remiss to try and pick the date. Maybe we wait until the end of the fiscal year, which is June 30. There’s been no determination on that yet.”

David Smith knows what kind of lying motherfucker we're dealing with.

 “When I say you’re looking at a mass exodus, I mean it,” Smith said. “I’ve communicated with 300 or 400 members since that report came out Monday. And that’s just me personally. We have other people in our organization who are taking calls. We’re telling everyone, ‘Get ready to pull the pin.’”

You know how repugs are always saying government doesn't work, then they get elected and make it come true?  Bevin is taking the decades-long lie about how incompetent state workers are and by  forcing thousands of experienced workers to retire and be replaced by minimum-wage drones, making that lie come true.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article170740742.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article170740742.html#storylink=cpy

The Only People Getting Rich Off KY Pensions Are Bevin's Wall Street Buddies

How very convenient that just when the country finally starts turning to raising taxes on the rich fucks who have been stripping the nation's treasury bare for 40 years, Governor I Got Mine Fuck You should decide that the victims of Kentucky's pension fraud - state employees - should have to pay for the money stolen by legislators and Wall Street sharks.

State employees have been fucked over time and again for 35 years, since legislators started chipping away at statutory benefits.

First they did away with incremental raises. Then performance bonuses.  Then the annual raises mandated by state law.  State employees haven't received full annual raises since 2002.  That's 15 years without a raise.

By then the motherfuckers in the legislator had started stripping pension benefits from new hires. The ones hired since 2013 don't have a pension at all: just a 401K they have to pay for themselves, then watch Wall Street strip it down to nothing.

State employees did not cause the pension crisis. State employees are the victims of the pension crisis.  But trumpie Bevin and repug austerity declare that the rich fucks who did cause the pension crisis cannot be asked to contribute a penny to solving it.

From the Herald:

Robb Smith, superintendent of Bellevue Independent Schools, was getting attention on social media Wednesday for a passionate open letter he wrote Gov. Matt Bevin in response to critical comments Bevin made about teachers.

“There are no absolutes when dealing with humans, but I can confidently say 99 percent of the people with whom I have worked, and there are hundreds, are not the greed-fueled personalities you have referenced in your speeches. The professionals in our schools are altruistic in motivation and pure in practice. To characterize them as anything else is irresponsible and unjust. To say they are anything but compassionate and dedicated is to distort the truth,” Smith wrote in an open letter to Bevin that he posted on social media.

The letter can be read in full at this link.

Anybody seen Bevin's tax returns for the last decade?  I'll bet my house he's profited from the Commonwealth's pension crisis.  Made money off the very victims he's now exploiting again.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article170197182.html#storylink=cpy

Trumpie Bevin to Force Public Servants to Pay for Legislature's 30-Year FuckUp

Kentucky's state worker pension plan is running out of money because for decades,k the General Assembly has refused to pay its obligations into the retirement system.  Legislators used the money they are constitutionally required to invest in the retirement plan and used it to plug holes in the budget.

The legislature stole Kentucky's retirement payments so they wouldn't have to balance the budget by making rich fucks and foreign corporations pay their fair share of taxes.

Then they broke the law in 2002 by cancelling state employee's statutorily-mandated annual raises.

They they slashed benefits for new hires, making state government employment less attractive than the night shift at Wendy's.

Now Governor "I Got Mine, Fuck You" Bevin wants to make state workers and retirees pay for the legislature's crimes with the retirement benefits the state constitution mandates.

Fuck off and die, motherfucker.  Raise taxes on the rich fucks and corporations who have skated on taxes for decades.  Get the money they stole from state workers.  Restore the pension plan with that recovered money.

Then raise taxes again on the rich fucks and corporations to pay their fair share now and in the future.  Do that, and we might have an economy that supports a 21st century Commonwealth, with good schools and good jobs and a healthy, sustainable environment. 

From the Herald:

An independent consultant recommended sweeping changes Monday to the pension systems that cover most of Kentucky’s public workers, creating the possibility that lawmakers will cut payments to existing retirees and force most current and future hires into 401(k)-style retirement plans.

SNIP

The group, which was hired by Bevin, offered only recommendations. Any changes to the pension system would come during a potential special legislative session in October. 

Over. Our. Dead. Bodies.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article169821392.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article169821392.html#storylink=cpy