http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/25/wisconsin-protests-who-co_n_828164.htmlWho really contributes to Wisconsin's public employees' pension funds?
On Friday morning, the Wisconsin state assembly passed a bill that would, as the Associated Press put it, "require public workers to contribute more to their pensions and health insurance and strip them of their right to collectively bargain benefits and work conditions."
But David Cay Johnston, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on inequities in the corporate tax code, says the AP's description of Walker's bill is critically misleading. The problem lies with the claim initiated by the Governor, that under the proposed plan state workers would "contribute more" to their pension plan. This distorts the issue at hand because, Johnston writes at Tax.com, it leads to a certain implicit impression:
"Somehow the workers are getting something extra, a gift from taxpayers. They are not.
Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin' s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.
How can that be? Because the "contributions" consist of money that employees chose to take as deferred wages -- as pensions when they retire -- rather than take immediately in cash. The same is true with the health care plan. If this were not so a serious crime would be taking place, the gift of public funds rather than payment for services.