Half of the $18.4 billion debt represents pension and health benefits that the city promised them.
The battle over the future of Detroit is set to begin this week in federal court, where government leaders will square off against retirees in a colossal debate over what the city owes to a prior generation of residents as it tries to rebuild for the next.
Soon after Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr and Gov. Rick Snyder approved a bankruptcy filing Thursday, groups representing the 20,000 retirees reliant on city pensions successfully petitioned a county court to effectively freeze the bankruptcy process.
Now, city and state officials, who say the court ruling will not affect their plans, are asking a federal judge to hold hearings early this week to validate the bankruptcy and move forward with a strategy for Detroit to discharge much of its estimated $19 billion debt.
Orr has promised that retired city workers, police officers and firefighters will not see pensions or health benefits cut for at least six months. But Sunday, he said those retirement benefits will have to be cut down the road.
[...]
Harry Harper, who lives in northeast Detroit and retired in 2003 from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department after 30 years of service, said talk of benefit cuts is making him very anxious.
"I feel very vulnerable. I don't feel we have any protection," said Harper, 61, who receives a $2,100 a month pension. "I thought that at 30 years, you earned a pension that was accrued and you did not have to have a concern about that."
Retirees such as Harper say that living in Detroit on a fixed pension is tough since public transit has been cut back and fuel prices have been going up. Michigan has among the highest gas prices in the country.
Jeanette Fitz, who retired after 35 years working in accounting for city government, said she fears that a cut to her pension or medical coverage will be devastating.
She pays more than $100 a month for a half-dozen medications, Fitz said, leaving much of her pension payments for her housing and other necessities.
"If they cut it, I'm not going to be able to pay my rent," she said.Read the full story HERE.
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3 comments:
I feel sorry for these people.
But this is what you get when you allow LEFTISTS to run your city for decades. RUIN. Let this be a lesson for the rest of America. But sadly, I don't think it will be. Americans have been trained to believe that the government magically provides everything, and can fix everything.
-Martha
I also feel sorry that people will suffer. However, the promises unions and the gov't are making are unsustainable. That's why the feds are so anxious to get their hands on the private sector's retirement accounts. They are REAL money, not empty promises of payment. If your pension isn't funded, guys, or saved for by yourself, there's no guarantee it will be there. And if Obama and his thugs get their way, whatever monies my husband and I put away for old age will either be eroded away or redistributed to the "less fortunate," ie, Obama voters. It doesn't matter if they have spent their lives taking an expensive vacation every year and dined on steak and lobsters every night. When they need funding, they will deserve my money, although I have acquired it by eating beans and visiting family for vacation most years.
I'm not a doomsday person, but I do think owning a home will be a good thing to do. Then you will be more likely to have a place to live if these gov't crooks manage to redistribute your retirement savings. I hope it doesn't happen, but taking over gov't management of private retirement savings has already been proposed in Congress. Of course they want your money! I also have four children that I am working to raise into productive members of society. I hope they won't let me starve! Unlike people who will be depending on younger people we have imported from some of the world's meanest places. I hope that these desperately needy people we have been importing will show gratitude and compassion as our society ages, but I'm not counting on it....
AZ
I'm thinking about young people like Tamarlan and Dhokar Tsarnaev. But don't worry,Dhokar smoked weed with his friends, so that must make him totally compassionate, right? And don't forget Obama the choom smoker. He is just so compassionate..... Then there's that other guy from Massachusetts named Mitt. He doesn't drink alcohol and he made money working so he must be the worst guy.... I bet he doesn't care about people, even though he donated millions to charity every year, and people tell lots of stories about his kindness to them. sarc
AZ
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