Thursday, December 16, 2010

Mr. Gantt Saves Taxpayers Money!

Today's Democrat & Chronicle contained this story about Assemblyman David Gantt and other New York lawmakers filing to receive their pensions despite the fact that they will continue to serve in the State Legislature.

This is the infamous practice known as "double dipping", which was allegedly one of the things that Governor-elect Cuomo vowed to take if elected. (I'll not hold my breath). The practice is legal and both Republican and Democrat members have taken advantage of the opportunity.

I won't bore you with my criticism of Gantt and his fellow crooks. Radio, TV, blogs and water cooler commentary have all uniformly excoriated this practice. I simply wanted to remark on Gantt's comment that he was actually saving taxpayers money by taking the pension now rather than allowing it to continue to accrue. He's right that his annual pension amount will be bigger in five years if he doesn't start taking it now. But is this move saving us money?

Sorry, Dave, you're math is off. If you take the lower annual amount now, plus your annual salary, you will be taking more total dollars out of the system than if you waited and took only the "larger" pension later. I guess you applied the same math skills when casting your budget votes all these years. It all makes sense to me now.

1 comment:

King Dinglefritz's Blog of Moronica said...

It is too bad that this crook ran unopposed. I did my part by not filling in the circle next to his name. I could not bring myself to vote for this guy. Thanks to this idiot the Rhino's stadium is in the middle of a slum instead of here in Gates where there is good traffic access, plenty of room for parking and no hookers.
I cannot believe we can't do any better than this guy for our Assemblyman. It is time for him to retire and take his pension to Florida. Can anyone think of one thing he has done that we can remember??? That is what I thought - Nothing!!!