Are willing to pay higher taxes so public employees can have a much better retirement than you?

How bad is the Public Employee Retirement System's (PERS) unfunded liability? Pretty bad when a long time union champion, former AFL-CIO Oregon President Tim Nesbitt writes an OPED about how this problem is a political problem for Democrat Progressives or the "Regressives" as I call them. The problem he is obliquely referring to is the reality that eventually, the middle class are going to be forced to pay higher taxes to pay for the lavish retirement benefits of public employees in the system compared to the far less generous benefits of 83% of the private sector workforce in Oregon.

The story recites the recommendations of Nesbitt and the Portland City Club to modify PERS in a manner that passes legal muster, but really just nibbles around the edges of lesseing the long term fiscal impact to taxpayers. The real reforms that are rejected in this report are the ones that must be enacted or else the average middle class Oregon taxpayer will have to pay higher taxes. So askyourself if you are willing to pay more in taxes for public employees?