Sen. Tony Strickland’s bill to strip pensions from public employees who commit financial felonies on the job failed yesterday in committee. All of the majority Democrats opposed SB 115 in the Senate Committee on Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security.

The bill would have affected only those employees who committed felonies on the job. It was a response to the Bell scandal, in which city employees will receive massive pensions even though they systematically looted the city. The following felonies would have brought termination of pension benefits: accepting, giving, or offering to give a bribe, embezzlement of public money, extortion or theft of public money, tampering with a witness, money laundering, preparation of false documents, or conspiracy to commit any of these crimes.

The bill would not have affected the pensions of those who committed felonies outside of their official duties. For example, a policeman who killed someone in a bar fight, off duty, would not lose his pension.

By defeating SB 115, Democrats have given even crooked employees another reason to keep robbing taxpayers. And the public-employee unions that control the Democratic Party have shown that they are unwilling to discipline even their most wayward members.

In a statement, Strickland said:

The real victims in this case are the taxpayers. They are the ones who will have to pay the outrageous pensions of public employees who violate their trust. This bill would have been a step in the right direction to eliminate the use of precious taxpayer dollars to pay lifelong pensions of public employees turned convicted felons.

If legislators can’t do this simple pension reform — we will have a hard time getting any meaningful reform moving forward.

The bill’s defeat is a microcosm of the routine looting taxpayers suffer every day.

May 3, 2011

We all need heroes. People we can look up to as examples and for inspiration.

Government workers now have a new hero: Robert Rizzo, who just resigned as city manager of tiny Bell after news reports revealed his salary was $787,637.00 and public outrage grew. He even was given the name of a superhero: The $800K Man. Maybe Hollywood will make a TV show out of it, like the 1970s classic, “The Six Million Dollar Man.”

Now that he’s left his post, Rizzo becomes an even bigger superstar to government workers. That’s because his pension, guaranteed by taxpayers, could start out at $600,000.00 a year. Eventually it will rise above $1,000,000.00 a year, and its current worth is $30,000,000.00. All for loafing.

Sweet. And it’s all legal.

What an inspiration. You can bet the folks in government are in awe of their new hero. And that millions of youngsters, who might have started businesses and created jobs, instead will go into government work, aiming for a similar payoff.

Robert Rizzo. Government-class hero: better, richer.

For his TV show, “The 800K Man,” the producers could modify the intro to the 1970s show: