[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_Senate_Bill_5_Voter_Refere...
Secondly and to your point, I am only speaking of defined-benefit "If you work here for x years you get y% of your salary." This is to say nothing of the health care (which is generally better than the private sector), the hours (which if you don't work for a legislator are generally better than the private sector), the guaranteed pay raise every year, the access to jobs you can only apply to if you already have a state job, and various small perks like free or cheap parking, food, etc. These are all benefits of the job and I had to take a serious look at the health care and hours for a state job when deciding between that and a corporate offer.
I'm not here to argue whether or not defined-benefit retirement plans are inherently good or bad. I'm saying it's irresponsible and dangerous for a state to guarantee by law that they'll pay anyone a fixed amount of money for decades at some distant point in the future. This is why it's most dangerous. If the state gets bankrupted by some unforeseen catastrophe 30 years from now, it can't suspend, eliminate or trim pension payouts. Not even $0.01. By definition the fact that pensions offer better retirement income than defined-contribution plans like a 401k should be a giant red flag. The system implodes if you can't at least break even off of it, and if it was possible to make money off of them the private sector would still be using them.
He didn't call you stupid for expressing an opinion, he called that particular view stupid.
This isn't 7th grade — come up with another word that really means what you want to say. There are a lot of ways to disagree with someone and/or an idea without the derogatory language.
Of course, when legislators pass pension hikes, they do so knowing that it pleases powerful unions now and the costs to tax payers are decades down the road. So it is one of the more appealing ways for a legislator to screw their state. They may even be out of office by the time the bill comes due!
Defined-benefit pensions are a huge drag on many state budgets, and paying them does nothing to improve the quality of current government services. The bluer the state, the more they are screwed:
http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/the-best-life/2012/11/08...
Contrary to what you say, most people don't choose teaching because of the benefit plans. They might do it because they only have to work 75% of the time, but it isn't the benefits. They choose it because that is what they want to do. Help kids, teach, etc.
The benefits do not make sense as a reason to do this job. If that's what you're going for, you'd just take a job in the private sector, work more, and make a lot more money.
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/...
Yes, I understand this might mean we have to pay higher salaries, but it will be far less than these crazy benefits they are getting.
It's not stupid to them, they want labor compliant, they don't want better options available to compare to.
"Why worry about retirement? You should be lucky you HAVE a job..."