Politicians and money

Most of us know that politicians, left, right and center like spending money, especially money that is not their own.

But there’s another aspect of this that some of us might not realize:

The Milwaukee School Board has spent 20 years ignoring a “fiscal time bomb” in the form of generous and unfunded health insurance benefits for retired MPS teachers and staff that will cost the district $5 billion by 2016, according to a new report by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.

via Milwaukee schools face booming retiree health care costs – JSOnline.

I know. It’s surprising isn’t it?

We’re seeing the same thing in health care where there are plenty of accounting gimmicks. Social Security is another. The alleged trust fund has been raided over the years to pay for deficits in the regular budget.

Yes, there are consequences. But if they are far enough down the road like the MPS and Social Security, the politicians will be long out of office before the piper has to be paid.

Tags: government spending