Coming Soon: Raising Taxes to Bail Out Public Retirees

The WSJ explains that the pensions for public employees have liabilities well in excess of their assets, due to the recent market crash. In business terms - they're bankrupt. Unfortunately for taxpayers, it means that all their taxes will soon be increasing in order to fund the public employees' generous retirements.

In New York, Governor Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg have proposed the radical idea of forcing a minimum retirement age of 50 for employees. Of course, even at that age, the average person will be supported by his fellow taxpayers for a period about 50% longer than he was serving the public. Forget about all the federal tax increases coming. If the public pension funds aren't changed in a major way, the 60% of Americans who pay taxes are going to see their rates increase even more dramatically to support the ever-growing state beauracracies.