COLUMBUS - Ohio taxpayers and most public employees would pay more, and some workers would have to stay on the job longer before retiring under plans proposed to ensure the long-term solvency of Ohio pension funds badly wounded in the stock market decline.
The five public retirement funds representing state and local government employees, highway patrolmen, local police and firefighters, teachers and school administrators, and other school employees presented lawmakers with plans that largely ask government, current workers, and retirees to share in the pain.
"We cannot invest our way out of this situation," said Rep. Todd Book (D., Portsmouth), chairman of the Ohio Retirement Study Council. "... That would require the market to go up 20 percent each of the next five years. That's not likely to occur."
Our public pensions--ensuring a secure retirement for Ohio's teachers, firefighters, and police officers--in this state took a hit when the stock market nose-dived last year (I know some of my dad's future retirement funds were affected, for example).
Now imagine we handed all of our federal retirement funds (i.e. Social Security) over to Wall Street. Where would events like the "Great Recession" leave millions of seniors around the country if we transitioned to such a system?
Yeah. That's why the idea went down in flames in 2005.
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