Public pension outrage in Pa.

Last May, many incumbents in the Pennsylvania Legislature were victims of a voters' revolution inspired by an attempted money grab in 2005, when legislators attempted to give themselves a 16 percent pay raise and tie their salaries to 50 percent of what a member of the U.S. Congress makes.
Voter backlash drove a number of veteran legislators out of office. And now, as a result of that, there should be a second revolution. Because the unusually high number of retirements has cast a spotlight on the obscenely high retirement benefits Pennsylvania legislators have given themselves.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported last week that Rep. Mike Veon of Beaver Falls, one of the spurned incumbents, is eligible to begin collecting 58,700 a year based on the 22 years Veon served in the Legislature. If Veon waits until next year, when he reaches the ripe old age of 50 to begin collecting his pension, he will be eligible for 62,500 for the rest of his life.
Based on a life expectancy of 76 years, Veon's pension for serving 22 years in the Legislature is worth 1.6 million.
And while Veon is collecting 62,500 a year for all those years, the average Pennsylvania voter will be working well into his 60s, earning less than half that and looking forward to a Social Security payment that will be about a fourth of Veon's retirement.
It is impossible for the average worker and taxpayer not to resent that kind of disparity between the working class and the ruling class.
Starting young
And Veon's numbers aren't the most outrageous.
A Pennsylvania legislator can serve as few as six years in Harrisburg and earn a lifetime pension. The Post-Gazette reported that Michael Diven, a representative from the Brookline section in Pittsburgh, served 5.8 years in the Legislature and could begin collecting now, at age 36, an annual pension of 5,800. If he waits until he's 50 to begin collecting, he would get 11,800 a year. Again, using a life expectancy of 76 years, Diven's pension would be worth 232,000 if he begins collecting it now and 307,000 if he begins collecting at 50 -- for serving less than six years in the Legislature.
Such generosity with taxpayers' money demands an appropriate response at the ballot box. The only problem is that Pennsylvania legislators have feathered their retirement nests so softly with taxpayer dollars that getting thrown out of office doesn't even hurt.