PERS deficit is $50 Billion!

Lars Larson transcript,
NW based national talk show host

Schools, police, and government services face a multi billion dollar threat to their very existence, and elected leaders have elected to do nothing about it. I’m not talking about the federal government shutdown. That’s going to end one of these days when the congress actually does its job and votes. No, I’m talking about the Public Employees Retirement System, known as PERS.

The system is $50B short of the cash it needs over the next couple of decades to pay pensions. Politicians on both sides lie about this, saying it’s only $26B. It’s the difference between what the PERS actually earns on its investments and the inflated number uses to hide the problem. Already last year PERS payed out $4.7B in benefits, but only took in $1.4B in payments. Now the only solution is billions of dollars in new taxes voters likely won’t approve, or laying off teachers, deputies, and police officers.

We can see the red ink on the budget, we’ve had the warnings and so-called leaders won’t act. When the wheels come off Kate Brown’s big PERS bust, don’t say nobody warned you.