Teamsters provided model for realistic pensions

Teamsters provided model for realistic pensions
EDITOR:
With the turmoil in the pension benefit and health care for retirees affair I have concluded that the Teamsters pension plan which covers me is one of a very few plans that is likely to remain solvent for the foreseeable future. Despite the fact that the Teamsters Union was nearly destroyed by "The Royal Family" and their cohorts in the 60's and is now a feeble imitation of what it once was, the pension fund has remained healthy. This is mostly due to the people who realized the strain early retirement and a huge advance in life expectancy would make it impossible to pay the amounts that were popular in other labor movements. Teamsters pensions are determined by two main factors. How much your employees contributed on your behalf and most importantly of all, how long statistics say you will be collecting your pension. The plan has been a target of many members who have an attitude of if others get it why can't we. Union officials desperate to show some gains in every contract try to take the shortsighted approach that has placed many funds into the pension guarantee fund and translated into huge losses for retires. Working people have to realize that a little less is better than a lot less. Companies can no longer afford the imprudent promises made by their former officers in the interest of labor peace with no concern for the problems created later.
Of course the people who wallow in the public trough have a different situation. The people who make the deal on their benefits have the blackmail option to fund anything they give away. Unlike the people from the real world who are required to fund these giveaways they can threaten and bully the taxpayers into paying these over generous funds.
The use of school buses, snow plowing police and fire protection, road repairs and other needed services are used as tools to bully people into paying more taxes. As in child raising and employer relations the use of threats to get obedience is normally wrong. For every punishment for failure to do so requested there should be a reward for closing what is wanted. A good start would be a promise (which must be kept) to get the out of control pensions and benefits of public employees and retirees be brought into line with the taxpayers who pay for them. Till then, let them try to find the money elsewhere.
ROBERT HUSTED
New Springfield
We're under assault
EDITOR:
With millions of illegal aliens crossing our borders undetected and FEMA's inadequate response to hurricane victims on our Gulf Coast, all adding to our homeland insecurities, the biggest unanswered question that should be on our minds is, "Why haven't we been attacked by terrorists since that terrible day in September 2001?"
1. We are spending billions of dollars fighting a war that was started under false pretenses and seems to be going no where fast.
2. More than 2,000 American lives have been lost fighting what appears to be yet another no-win war.
3. This war is burning millions of gallons of expensive oil daily, which the world needs for more important, economic matters.
4. These terrorists or anyone, for that matter, can circulate information about an apparent attack and we go on full alert which costs more and more money.
5. Their actions on Sept. 11 were instrumental in the creation of the Patriot Act, which is an assault on our freedoms and privacy which our elected politicians in Washington are supposed to protect under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
To my way of thinking, the terrorists have accomplished their mission and need not attack American soil again. Therefore, there should be an exit strategy for the war in Iraq.
DAVID P. GAIBIS SR.
New Castle, Pa.