Fund the teachers pension plan

Dear Editor:

Why do our candidates hate teachers and taxpayers?

I fail to understand why two of our state representative candidates hate our teachers. I say this because Justin Yaich and Bruce Nalesnik both want to take away our teachers pension plan. They talk about how it's in our best interest to change our teachers from their pension plan to a 401k style plan, but they fail to understand that the pension plan will still have to pay out benefits for the employees that are already enrolled in the plan. This means that it will have to pay out benefits for 70 to 80 years with no additional revenue from newly hired workers coming into the plan.

Who would be responsible to pay that money? We would as state taxpayers. The state is not permitted to default on the pension, so the bill would be due and we would all see a massive tax increase. The fiscally responsible thing to do is to fund the pension plan as the teachers and the state both agreed to do. This would prevent the catastrophe of a decades long tax increase.

In addition to being the responsible thing to do for us as taxpayers, it also gives our teachers an incentive to want to teach here, at home, in PA. We lose far too many of our youth to other states once they graduate college.

Why would we want to take away an attractive benefit from one of the few careers that our children can pursue here at home?

Don Wilson

Jim Thorpe