Yesterday, not one, but two, Democrat politicians jumped into the race for State Treasurer: Pat Stryker henchwoman former U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey and Broomfield Mayor Pat Quinn. But, one of these candidates seems to have learned math from Rep. Lois Court “Math is Not My Friend” school of fiscal budget scoring.
In case, Peak Nation™, you’ve forgotten, Markey’s most memorable financial remark was to declare the bloated and outsized Obamacare bill a “the biggest deficit reduction bill to come before Congress in more than a decade.”
While Markey became a case study for politicians who were run out of town for their vote for the disastrous Obamacare bill, we stand in awe of how she could have possibly considered this absurdity not just a “deficit reduction bill,” but the biggest one in ten years. It turned out that Obamacare will cost countless billions, and may be the largest single tax increase in American history. And yet, she believes that she’s the best option for Colorado’s Treasurer? Really?
She also declared the flawed Obamacare bill to be affordable, allowing for improved access, and fiscally sustainable in the long term. Looks like she was wrong on all three of those counts as well, as family premiums are well above $10,000 annually, it is triggering a doctor shortage, and Obama’s own GAO announced that the cost controls “were not sufficient to prevent an unsustainable increase in debt held by the public.” It doesn’t even look like the Administration will have their small business healthcare exchanges ready to go in 2014, when it had years to get this system in place.
Aside from Obamacare, Markey voted for other fiscally reckless measures in her mercifully-short two year stint in Congress, such as her vote in favor of the idiotic “cash for clunkers” program and “cap and trade,” a measure that could have been very destructive for our natural resources industry here in Colorado and middle-class families who can scarcely afford to pay unnecessarily high energy prices.
In contrast, Treasurer Walker Stapleton has been a fiscal hawk on issues like PERA reform, which is critical to Colorado’s future financial stability. The Markey candidacy sounds like another Pat Stryker attempt to control Colorado’s purse strings. Colorado doesn’t need the fuzzy math that Markey’s offering.
State and local governments in the U.S. have three times much bonded debt as they do public pension debt. How is it that public pension debt is such a burden while all other state and local government debt (300 percent greater debt) is not a burden? ($2.8 Trillion according to the U.S. Census Bureau.)
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Bond_issue
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0439.pdf
How is the fact that state and local governments have not "banked" the three percent of future revenues needed to support their public pension debt a "crisis," while the fact that state and local governments have not banked the 97 percent needed for all other future public expenditures is not a "crisis." Doesn't fit the political agenda does it?
The return assumption for PRIVATE sector defined benefit pension plans in the U.S. is now 8.1 percent, higher than the return assumption for most public sector defined benefit pension plans. Good enough for the private sector, not good enough for the public sector?
The ratings agencies, Fitch and S&P believe public pension systems to be well-funded at 80 percent actuarial funded ratios, the average funded ratio for US public pension systems is currently in the 70s. Why is debt owed by "well-funded" pension systems to be a "crisis"?
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