Like the idea of government run health care? Go pick up your mail.

A couple of weeks ago I stopped by our local Post Office to check our company mail box. One of the items we received was a letter from someone in Florida addressed to the Social Security Administration.

Given that the P.O. Box on the address was the same as ours, at first I didn't think much about it. But, being the curious person I am, I really took a good look at the address as I walked to the miss-boxed mail slot nicely provided by the post office for errors such as this.

The letter was supposed to have gone to Wilkes Barre... Pennsylvania. I'm in Georgia. I decided this was probably a pretty important, possibly deadline oriented piece of mail so I stood in line to personally hand it to someone at the counter rather than stick it in the bin for incorrectly boxed mail.

I looked it over closely while I waited. Based on the handwriting I "assumed" it was written by an older woman. I figured she probably wrote the wrong zip code... but nope, it was correct (18702... ours here starts with a 302...). The postal worker and I both looked closely and everything was correct, except the encoding at the bottom. Some worker along the line encoded the zip incorrectly, or maybe a machine read it incorrectly. No one had looked at anything other than the P.O. Box number when it ended up at my post office.

The postal worker I was talking with crossed through the incorrect encoding and said she'd send it on correctly.

While standing in line I wrote down all the ladies info from the letter, thinking I'd drop her a note to let her know it was miss-boxed, miss-directed, miss-labeled and delayed. Then, of course, completely forgot about it by the time I got home. Until yesterday when I stopped by to check my post office box again, only to find the same letter once again waiting for me.

Yup, your government workers at work. Can you imagine what government run health care is going to look like?

I remember working at the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) in Atlanta as supervisor over an area that received quite a bit of mail. Banks would send us all their bank information for processing, including their customer's checks and bank statements for matching.

One November a whole batch of bank statements from an Alabama institution went missing. We ended up recreating everything and moving on. We were used to having the post office delay or lose mail.

What makes this one interesting is that one year later, in November, the statements arrived from the post office. They had the original date stamp from the bank mailing machine of the first year, plus the post office date stamp from the first year when mailed. A full year later, on the day it would have, should have, arrived a year earlier, it appeared at the FHLB!

That may have been one of the strangest I remember, but as said, it was fairly commonplace given the volume of mail we dealt with to have delays and problems.

When they cram this health care bill down our throats and it goes into effect in a few years, we better hope that we stay in good health.

Note: I'm working on two more blogs referencing "government run" incompetence, one to do with government run flood insurance (that'll curl your toes) and the other with what happens when you're mandated to move from private insurance to Medicare. No, I'm not there yet, but I sure know some people who've gone through it over the past few years... after hearing what they've gone through, I do not look forward to the day when I go through that nightmare transition.

The Tax Hike Cometh…

Oops, goofed, the tax hike has already cometh… However, if you think the County’s tax increase this year is something, wait until the County Commission votes to implement defined benefits for county employees!

The County seems hell bent on doing what every other large business has been forced to dump if they planned to stay in business. Companies across the nation have found it impossible to fund the kind of retirement program the County wants to put in place. They’ve gone into bankruptcy; they’ve run to the government to help, they’ve closed their doors.

And it’s not just private companies (like IBM, General Motors, Delta Air Lines, etc.) who’ve had huge problems with trying to pay the bill for defined benefit type retirement. Counties and cities are having to go back to taxpayers to fund bloated defined benefit programs.

At a time when so many are crashing and burning in large part due to defined benefits, the County is looking to grab onto the golden tether and ride the horse straight into our pockets. Yep, that’s where all this is going to end up, with taxpayers having to pony up the funds to cover benefits for employees who’ve long since moved on to other jobs, states, countries...

Right now, it looks like the county is getting ready to commit to a defined benefit system that is raising taxes across the state and beyond.

Who’s giving them advice on this plan? From everything I’ve seen at the meetings and heard from others in the know, the company that will ultimately get the business is providing all the studies, data and info. Oh, and a committee of employees who are getting close to retirement and one outside attorney who has absolutely no knowledge of retirement systems and said so during his first briefing to the Commission.

I’ve talked to umpteen insurance types, financial wizards and the like about defined benefits. Every single one, no exception, basically said “RUN” in the other direction if someone starts talking defined benefits. I’ve been on the Internet searching for someone who says something good about a defined benefit program. The only folks saying they like it either work for or are affiliated with someone who’s also selling benefit programs. Find a think tank who says it’s a good idea… find an independent financial wizard who says it’s a good business decisions… If it’s a bad business decision doesn’t it stand to reason that it’s a bad decision for the government to expect us to fund this type retirement?

Here’s my prediction based on the information that abounds on this issue: We’ll be fine for a few years. All will be rosy and everyone will sing merry songs and give glowing reports. Then the County will have a wave of retirements. They’ll scramble a bit to cover the unfunded liability. It’ll grow. And grow. By the time the next change of command on the Board of Commissioners the county will be in a deep hole with no way to dig itself out. There will be some major scrambling to try and figure out how in the world to pay benefits for those who only worked for the county for five, six and seven years. They’ll do without some recreation, they’ll do without some needed road improvements, they’ll cut back here, cut back there… and raise our taxes ‘cause there ultimately won’t be any other way to cover the tab that will grow exponentially as more and more hit retirement age.

I worked for the government for 14 years. I had both a defined benefit retirement and a 401K plan. I didn’t appreciate it while I was there, but boy I love it now. I understand why everyone would want a defined benefit retirement plan. It’s there for a lifetime if you don’t cash it out. However, my 401K would do the same thing. In fact, I rather like it better. When I die, my husband or my kids will get whatever I didn’t use. The defined benefit? It doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the government. They’ll give the money I paid into it to someone else.

One of the reasons for moving to a defined benefit system that is touted is that it makes the county government competitive. Well gee, I guess it’ll make ‘em even more attractive now that every other company in the world is ditching their defined benefit. I would argue that for most of us it’s things like salary, health, location, and the job itself that attract us. Until most hit their 40s or 50s they’re not thinking much about retirement. If they are the type that does, many would be happier (or as happy) with a 401K or the system the County currently has. Who wouldn’t like to own their own future? Who doesn’t like the idea of the company matching their contributions? Managed correctly a 457 or 401 can out-perform many retirement systems and it doesn’t go away the day you die.

We need to make sure county employees aren’t stuck out in the cold when they retire. We can’t expect them to live on Social Security alone. A good percentage of county employees are socking money away for their future under the current program. Some aren’t. Some of those are young and aren’t yet thinking of that day in the future when they’ll retire. Some have spouses who are making sufficient money that they’ve opted to take every penny of their salary. Some who aren’t contributing to the current retirement program won’t want to pay their portion of the defined benefit program either if it means a decrease in their take-home pay.

[[[[Just in case you're wondering what the difference is between a defined benefit retirement plan and a defined contribution plan like the County currently offers here's easy to remember definitions: defined benefit: controlled by others and they tell you what you'll get; defined contribution : you own it, and put your own funds into it. Usually companies do a match with a defined contribution plan]]]]]