News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Strikes spread as French unions intensify pension reform ... by lotsofpulp on Tuesday March 07, 2023 @06:32PM (#35062941)
https://www.thebalancemoney.com/u-s-federal-budget-breakdown...

For states and cities, see local government websites for reports. Or you can start here:

https://www.truthinaccounting.org/

On the state/city level, all the money is going to former employees for labor performed in previous decades. The scheme is voters today purchase government employee labor for lower cash outlay today hence lower taxes today, then subsequent taxpayers pay higher and higher taxes as the can gets kicked down the road.

The reason this is different from regular old debt is that via questionable accounting methods and actuarial assumptions, the cost of the deferred compensation is presented as absurdly low compared to what it really is. So it does not show up on any official figures anywhere, just greater and greater portions of the government budget go to paying benefits.

Re:Strikes spread as French unions intensify pension reform ... by OrvalWintermute on Tuesday March 07, 2023 @11:08PM (#35065133)
> On the state/city level, all the money is going to former employees for labor performed in previous decades. The scheme is voters today purchase government employee labor for lower cash outlay today hence lower taxes today, then subsequent taxpayers pay higher and higher taxes as the can gets kicked down the road.

This is why contracting out services makes public sector CFOs so happy.

Replace a large % of your civil servant workforce with a company that specializes in that one function, eat potentially higher or inflated OPEX, but no long-term costs regarding pensions. If the requirement for services change, scale down the contract.