Ohhhh those nasty teacher pensions

I'll be right up there early on to take a look at teacher pay per hours worked.  It is actually a good job and having done both in my lifetime - teach and work in the private sector - the act of teaching is neither rocket science nor fit only for Superman or woman.  Like any job - and I mean any job - it is tough to do it right and pretty easy to just skid through.

Teachers generally belong to unions and these unions - again generally - can't strike as almost every state has a law about that.  What they do, however, is organize at the voting booth and support those politicians who control them and give them the best deal.  Most of the time they support the democrats.  School board who determine their salaries are generally non-party.  State officials who handle things like pension funds and state policy are either Rs or Ds.  Frankly I'd be crazy to vote for the guy who was going to cut my salary or jigger with my pension.

Now there are a whole lot of Republican governors who are blaming teacher pension payments for all the ills of budgetary messes.  This quote from an editorial today in the Wall Street Journal is a reasonable generalization of the means and ends of the discussion:  "School districts in New York State contributed $900 million last year to the state's teacher pension system, but districts may have to spend as much as $4.5 billion on pensions within five years to meet rising costs".

Let's do some math.  A simple ratio and proportion will do it:  

1 year is to $900 million as 5 years is to: ?????
ooops they gave the answer didn't they?  $4.5 billion as $900 million times 5 is $4.5 billion....OMG

if I pay one dollar today and one have to pay the same amount tomorrow what will I have to pay?  Let me think.....wow. $1.

Noted.