CalSTRS moves to increase your taxes
Jan. 10, 2013
By John Seiler
The California State Teachers Retirement System just moved to increase your taxes. They didn’t do so directly, but that will be the result. Because when CalSTRS investments don’t grow fast enough, by law taxpayers are on the hook to make up the difference. Already, taxpayers pay about $6 billion a year to make up for the bad performance of CalSTRS and CalPERS, the California Public Employees Retirement System.
“SACRAMENTO — Acting on a request from the state treasurer, the board of the state teachers pension fund has begun the process of selling its holdings in some gun and ammunition-clip manufacturers.
“Treasurer Bill Lockyer‘s motion was approved unanimously Wednesday by the Investment Committee of the $154-billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System.
“Lockyer brought the issue to the board in response to December’s mass shooting of 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn.”
Of course, Lockyer and other anti-gun extremists don’t take into account how every year hundreds of thousands of Americans defend themselves with guns, such as the mother of two whose story I linked to the other day. And Lockyer himself is hypocritical because he works in an office building with armed guards. If he’s threatened, the State Police will guard his home. But for the rest of us, we’re on our own — and if he had his wish, we’d be unable to defend ourselves against robbers, rapists and murderers.
Any government employee retirement system should have one goal: To make as much money from its portfolio as legally possible so taxpayers don’t have to make up for shortfalls. Any legal investment that performs well should be included in the portfolio. Guns are legal. So if gun stocks perform well, they should be included.
Anything else is just an inevitable, hidden tax increase and a posturing, ideological sham.
Lockyer is term-limited as treasurer, was term-limited as a state legislator and attorney general, and now is running for his next office, probably secretary of state. He’s not even a governor or legislator and he’s raising your taxes!
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