Public employees get the better deal
It is with saddened heart that I read Don Rowley’s response to my letter of July 6.
The letter was not meant as a reprove or denigration of teachers and/or their accomplishments or dedication. It was a plea for some shared sacrifice. We can’t always have things as we would wish; we have to acknowledge situations as they actually exist.
We are a two-member retired family whose combined income with all remunerations does not come close to what you make as a one-person retiree may realize. I do not begrudge you this, sir. What the letter was alluding to was the retirement of all public employees, and the question is: Would you have our welfare keep diminishing so that public employees may continue unimpeded in their upward spiral? There is no money in the coffers and no money tree in the back yard. Where do you expect us to keep getting the money for free health care for retirees? You keep bemoaning that you do not receive Social Security; if you had the choice, what would you choose, the lower benefits of Social Security, or the higher benefits you now receive? We both know the answer.
No one we know (us, and our “middle class”? friends) all private sector employees, enjoys a fraction of the benefits bestowed on the public sector, especially since the escalation that has occurred in the last 15 years. The only increase for us is taxes.
My quarrel isn’t with you sir, it’s with a public employee who cries about only receiving $50,000 a year pension with free health care and 3 percent compounded raises after 20 or 30 years of service. Even when they know there is no money in the treasury.
Rosemary Colbert
Schaumburg