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AFP launches no-PERA pledge for politicians

May 16th, 2012, 1:34 pm · 11 Comments · posted by Daniel Chacon

Jeff Crank

The Colorado chapter of Americans for Prosperity asked mayoral and City Council candidates in Colorado Springs last year to sign a no-tax pledge.

Now AFP wants political candidates — as well as elected officials — to sign a pledge to opt out of the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association.

“The pledge not only asks signers to abstain from participating in such programs themselves, but it commits them to taking every action possible to protect taxpayers from future pension bailouts, by restoring such funds to financial sustainability and refraining from promising public employees pension benefits that aren’t fully funded and sustainable over the long run,” Jeff Crank and Sean Paige, the Colorado chapter’s director and deputy director, respectively, said in a press release.

Here’s the press release in its entirety:

AFP PERA Pledge Aimed at Defusing Pension Time Bomb

Signatures Sought From Elected Officials and Candidates

In recognition of the fact that underfunded, fiscally-unsustainable public employ retirement programs are driving all levels government toward bankruptcy, Americans for Prosperity-Colorado today unveiled a new pledge it is asking elected officials and candidates for office to sign. The pledge not only asks signers to abstain from participating in such programs themselves, but it commits them to taking every action possible to protect taxpayers from future pension bailouts, by restoring such funds to financial sustainability and refraining from promising public employees pension benefits that aren’t fully funded and sustainable over the long run.

The pledge reads as follows:

“I, _______________________________, pledge to the taxpayers of _________________________ that, if elected, I will opt out of the Public Employees’ Retirement Association’s Defined Benefit Plan, or the applicable taxpayer-funded plan that’s available if my office is not eligible for PERA. I further pledge that I will do everything possible as an elected official to make PERA and other public-sector pension programs fiscally sustainable and self-funded, and to safeguard taxpayers against the risk of future liabilities and bailouts by moving such plans from the defined-benefit to a defined-contribution model. I also pledge to decline invitations to make pay, pension or benefit promises to public employees that aren’t fiscally sustainable and self-supporting.”

AFP will ask elected officials with pension fund responsibility, and all candidates running in relevant races, to sign the pledge.

“Anyone paying attention knows that underfunded government employee pension plans are a major source of financial strain at virtually all levels of government,” said AFP-Colorado Director Jeff Crank, ”and we’re calling on elected officials and candidates to personally help stop the hemorrhaging, and to help prevent future bailouts, by signing this pledge. It not only commits them to not contributing further to the problem, by declining to participate in a pension option that isn’t of the defined-contribution type, but it asks that they take active steps, whenever possible, to stop promising public employees what the taxpayers can’t deliver and to start putting troubled funds back on firm financial ground.”

Crank said he thought it was important that elected officials lead by example on pension reform, which is why the group is asking politicians eligible to enroll in such pension program to decline to do so, unless they are signing up for a defined-contribution plan, or 401K-type plan, modeled after private sector plans. “One obstacle to getting these retirement plans back on track is that many elected officials are beneficiaries of the same plans we’re asking them to overhaul,” said Crank. “That creates a potential conflict of interest that we can help eliminate by asking elected officials to lead by example and not enroll in plans that aren’t sustainable and will contribute to the pension crisis.”

Although AFP is a non-partisan organization that doesn’t endorse individual candidates or political parties, it reserves the right to publicize who signs or doesn’t sign the pledge as part of its citizen education efforts.

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Bruce Johnson says:

May 16, 2012 at 3:03 pm

Give it up, political wannabe Jeff Crank. Your anti-tax pledge has doomed us to a day when stormwater will either literally explode, or lead us into a far more costly lawsuit. You honestly think that politicians (especially our city council making a measly $6500/year) will give up their own benefits? I don’t think so.

You should be spending your time figuring out how to rally more than 40 teabaggers to the city hall steps to protest McEvoy’s golden parachute. If that’s the best you can do, you’re really nowhere near the power player you consistently remind everyone you are!

Mike Bona says:

May 16, 2012 at 3:18 pm

you know what Crank and Paige are called after running for offices;

LOSERS

(OK everybody who likes to deal in facts tell me where that comment is wrong)

Nicole says:

May 16, 2012 at 3:19 pm

Why would anyone do that? Personally, I think they will care more about preserving a system they are a part of. In addition, they don’t pay into Social Security because they have PERA. Why should politicians families be any less secure financially than any other? Especially when members of City Council make a whopping $6,250 a year!

I will respect people much more if they don’t sign a, “pledge,” to a political advocacy group. The pledge should be to the citizens they represent ALONE.

May 16, 2012 at 3:25 pm

I guess at least we’ll know who NOT to vote for if they sign. Again, the allegiance should be to the citizens and not a narrowly focused, self-interested, partisan political action group.

Eyes On You says:

May 16, 2012 at 4:42 pm

I am confused as to why Americans for Prosperity doesn’t seem to want people to actually prosper. They don’t want Dr. M to prosper. They don’t want hard working public servants to prosper. Who do they want to prosper? Let me guess. Themselves? It’s time for regular folk to tell these goobs to stuff it. Left, right or in between, enough is enough. These AFP people are the lunatic fringe and should be treated as such. Just because you can run your mouth and have a forum to do so doesn’t mean you are correct. And, of course, the Gazeete will give them some press. Oh wait. It’s an equally lame blog. And I just wasted ten minutes giving them time in my head when they are miniscule nobodys with a goofy message. Dang.

PinonValley says:

May 16, 2012 at 4:53 pm

You shouldd include all government funded pension plans in your discussion. These would include military, military contractor’s pensions, etc.

Don’t be hypocritical and speak out of only one side of your mouth.

not so fast says:

May 17, 2012 at 8:45 am

You point out AFP’s tunnel vision, PinonValley: the elephant in the room always has been police and fire (union) pension plans, which past council members underfunded more than once. That outlay is about as much as the cost of civilian PERA. Furthermore, it ignores every school district board candidate in the state including Denver Public Schools. Crank & Paige can only try keeping the Springs a one-horse town.

They couldn’t even convince Doug Bruce to opt out of PERA during his state Rep term.

csaction says:

May 17, 2012 at 9:49 am

So…. the deception over their hidden agenda with the McEvoy golden parachute is revealed: public employees, their unions, their pensions, their services, their value added, which they want to be private, for-profit institutions that cost us all twice as much.
The Koch brothers, who fund this anarchist group simply want to make more money by NOT having to pay minimum wage, time-and-a-half for overtime, any pension input, any health benefits, any labor laws or any fair practice.
Crank and Paige are dupes.
Don’t YOU be one too.

May 17, 2012 at 10:39 am

cs(in)action: local public employees are not allowed to join unions.

Gary Casimir says:

May 19, 2012 at 1:45 pm

“Although AFP is a non-partisan organization that doesn’t endorse individual candidates or political parties, it reserves the right to publicize who signs or doesn’t sign the pledge as part of its citizen education efforts.”

That’s a laugh! AFP is not a non-partisan organization by a long shot. It’s main financial backers have an agenda that excludes the citizens, undermining of our state and local governments to inact policies that are to their financial benefit. Witness AFP’s sister organization, ALEC, pushing voter suppression legislation, stand your ground laws, & eliminating environmental protections, just for starters.

poinsetta says:

May 24, 2012 at 6:13 pm

We can not and should not put our trust in a 401 k. every time the moneys go in someone figures out a way to take it from us. In the 80′s it was ripping off the credit unions and this time it was the 401′s.
How do you double your money? fold it in half and stick it in your pocket.

AFP launches no-PERA pledge for politicians

May 16th, 2012, 1:34 pm · 11 Comments · posted by Daniel Chacon

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