Governor Brown cartoon on PERS

By Taxpayer Association of Oregon

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Oregon Governor Kate Brown has looked at one of the most generous and expensive government pension problems and decided that there is nothing to change.   This is why she balked at reforming the state’s pension problem (PERS) at the Oregon Leadership Summit and then proceeded to call for a billion in new taxes on small businesses, health care and alcohol.   Oregon’s pension deficit is $21 billion and is threatening to devour huge portions of our state budget.  Experts are predicting that pension costs are nearing 30% of the cost of payroll.

Despite all this, Gov. Brown continues to give a free pass to the state’s pension crisis and push all the blame and the burden to taxpayers.  It seems Oregon wishes to continue to ignore the pension crisis while also continue to hiring new government employees at a  rate of 17 new state and local government employee positions created every single day (including weekends and holidays).  Even if Gov. Brown gets her $1 billion tax increase we will likely be facing a continued pensions PERS crisis in the next budget.   The problem will never be fixed until you fix over-spending of benefits and new employees.   Oregon government should not be spending faster than taxpayers can afford.

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