Agree 100%. If the state can do a better job handling the pension problem, by all means, let them take it over.

There is little doubt that the Pennsylvania, with one of the best-run, most solvent state pension plans in the country, could do a better job.

I still suspect the reason city officials hate the idea is because of what the needed audit might reveal about past mishandling of the fund. Did any of it go to build stadiums, unbeknownst to the rest of us? Should anyone be facing criminal charges?

Yeah...a really great idea. NFW! I don't live in the the city. My town has been responsible in its dealings with public employees and has a fully funded pension plan. Give it to the state? That means in addition to paying, through my taxes, for pension plans in my town, I will be supporting a dysfunctional pension system in Pittsburgh.

You can't blame this one on George Bush. Try 80 years of mismanagement and give-aways to its labor base by Pittsburgh's Democrats.

As to the comment that "There is little doubt that the Pennsylvania, with one of the best-run, most solvent state pension plans in the country, could do a better job," the teachers' pension plan is underfunded. My school taxes just went up over $200 because my school district is required to kick in to help close the funding gap in the Pennsylvania School Employees Retirement System. And then, there is the Allegheny County Port Authority!

When will people learn that all the money for government and its employees come from only one source - the pockets of taxpayers. And the idea of taxing corporations sounds nice to some but corporations don't pay taxes - people do and taxing corporations means a pass through in the cost of services and products. So..how much more do YOU want to pay?

"Defined benefit" pension plans are unsustainable, period! It's time for public employees to return to the real world. There is a term that crops up often in the real world when conditions change. That term is 'renegotiation.' Try that before asking me to pay more.

Gosh, there, Bill. No one mentioned Bush, or taxing corporations, etc. Sounds like someone is trying to shoehorn the issue into their unoriginal agenda, which is unreasoning disparagement of all public employees.

The cities pension problem goes past Mayor Masloff and beyond. Time for the state to take it over and make it solvent.

"Sounds like someone is trying to shoehorn the issue into their unoriginal agenda, which is unreasoning disparagement of all public employees.
"

Regis, it's not the employees...I would take the deal they got in a heartbeat, if I were a public employee. It's city manaagement, meaning the Mayor and Council and all of their predecessors in decades past. And for the last 80 years, one political party controlled the city treasury and made all those generous concessions.

City management has choices - raise prices (meaning taxes), sell or lease assets (land, buildings) or cut other expenses to make the pension funds whole. This is the same kind of choice private business makes every day when expenses exceed the checking account balance. For the city politicians to expect every taxpayer in Pennsylvania pick up the slack is little more than refusal to face reality. Government needs to live within its means. If it can't, it's time for a new management team and renegotiation. The Mayor and Council have a tough row to hoe, no doubt about it. But to live in fantasyland and seek a bailout from the rest of Pennsylania is an unjust imposition on those who have been responsible.

If this is an 'unoriginal agenda', so be it! I think it's common sense economics.

Oh yeah - the Bush comment - the Dems, from Obama on down are still blaming Bush for everything - just look at some of the commercials and speeches.

Bill, I just thought the Bush reference was gratuitous and irrelevent.

As for the local dems, they are a perfect example of what happens when one party has an iron grip on power too long. I couldn't agree more. I just wish the local GOP would stop hiding out and give the Dems some real competition, to keep everyone (sort of) honest.