Our State’s Governor and Legislators care more about being elected than taking responsible positions on balancing the budget while paying off the current and past bills, the accrued debt, and pension debt. Legislators work in a bipartisan way to spend hundreds of millions in their districts to appease voters and contributors. One such project is an Ohio River Port for Cairo. It will be a failure just as the Mid-American Airport is. A yearly waste is unnecessary road repairs. Monies designated by special taxes are being diverted to those wasted projects. They passed taxes for designated uses for votes, and then use the money elsewhere for votes.

Our supposedly high taxes rate puts us in with the bottom half of the states because of all the deductions and exemptions we get. One exemption most people would agree could be eliminated is state pensions. The treasurer will pay out $8.5 billion this year for pensions. Eliminating it would mean $425 million for paying down the state’s debt. Taxing the pensions when issued would mean those pensioners living out -of-state would pay for money they made while living here.

Another change would be combining all five pension funds into one. This would eliminate double and triple dipping by too many people jumping from one plan to another and drawing two or three pensions. Legislators, judges, and others get one pension and after a few years, jump to another public job, and maybe another. It’s possible a person could qualify for three in twelve years. Lengthening vestment to at least ten years would save money and multiple pensions. Add in one or two Federal pensions by the same maneuvering. Combining all five would save billions in pension liabilities.