New Federal and State employees should not receive a pension.

A question of clarification: As the armed forces are part of the Federal Government, are you against their receiving pensions, as well? Since you clarified yours, I'll attempt to clarify my basic position, too: I think pensions are good. And I think that it is sad that they are less common in the private sector than they once were. I believe that, rather than stooping down with the private sector, the public sector jobs should maintain their pension plans (as much as is feasible, considering the state of some of their finances). "A high tide raises all boats" and all that jazz. Onwards!: "It doesn't make sense to me that these people should be payed for the rest of their lives based on what they did in the past." Your first paragraph is not really relevant to our debate. I can't tell whether it's an argument against the existing pensions, or an argument against pensions in general? I think it betrays a fundamental lack of perspective on this subject (if you'll forgive me for saying so). I believe, to possibly move forward, I will have to explain WHY it makes sense to pay the existing pensions. I'll try to analogize: if you have a banana, and I am hungry, and I offer you $0.50 today, and $0.50 tomorrow, I do not get to say, tomorrow, that "Well, there is no more banana, so I don't see why I should have to pay you based on what you did in the past". The pension is a part of the compensation package of these employees. It was a promise made to them when they were hired. They worked their entire careers in the public sector based on that promise. THAT is why it makes sense to pay them "for the rest of their lives based on what they did in the past". Perhaps you feel that the $1.00 total for our metaphorical banana is too much to pay. That might be valid, and the actual content of pension packages is certainly an important debate. Your contention is that they should go away completely, however, despite presently existing. It's worth noting that the federal government is not "placing higher value on these citizens than the rest of the country." ALL employers are perfectly capable of offering pensions; the fact that they choose not to is a testament to how poorly the modern private sector treats employees. A main reason that companies do not offer pensions is that they are attempting to maximize profits, no matter the cost to their employees. No longer is there any loyalty from the company to the employee, if it was ever there at all. The same motive drives companies to pollute, or to endanger employees, or to attempt to "union-bust". Ethics have always been tricky to legislate. The Federal Government should not be wasteful, I think we can both agree. Nor should State governments be peeing money down the proverbial drain. But at the same time, I don't want my government to abuse its workers. I want my government to be something inspiring, not helping drive down the lowest common denominator. Further, in many fields, government workers have the ability to abuse their authority; knowing that they will be taken care of in their retirement removes a certain amount of temptation to corruption (though, of course, not entirely). Each State has the right to its own pension system. And, despite there being no Federal REQUIREMENT for any state to have a pension, each state HAS some kind of pension [1]. While that does not NECESSARILY mean that there is good reason to have a pension, I do believe that the burden is on you to establish a reason why this thing which Federal and State employees currently get should go away entirely. You'll be working against the fact that, despite budget woes, not a single state has actually done so yet. Finally, I'd like to point out that, if you take away the pension from new incoming employees, you're essentially instituting a massive compensation cut for them, compared to the people who started even a month before the cutoff. [1] -- http://en.wikipedia.org...