re: It's happening. Washington is the first state to terminate a public employee pension plan!

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Promise?

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Yes, according to the summary plan description, which specifies who is eligible, how benefits are calculated, vesting period, duration of payments, etc. It is a legal obligation of the state, so a promise.

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From Reason, fwiw.
Which is practically Communist now for some reason.

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Regardless of how stupid the rank and file of the Left is, it has been extremely effective at infiltrating organizations of all descriptions and all levels. Journalism, Schools at all levels, Churches, etc.

The libertarian movement was not spared this infiltration and you started seeing so called "left libertarians" pop up and start pushing decidedly non libertarian ideas.

The Left has been extremely successful at playing the long game. Too many organizations have already been captured before they even realized it was happening, like slowly boiling a frog.

It would be a real shame if a couple hundred desperate retired cops ent killdozer on that government. A real shame.

It depends on the specific pension plan. Some plans don't require the employee to make any contributions, some do. If they do, it does show up as a line item on the pay stub, just like a 401k contribution. Each defined benefit plan is unique, with different contribution requirements and benefit formulae. The benefit is typically based on a formula that is disclosed to the beneficiaries. In other words, the employee knows that if they work a certain number of years, they'll be paid a specific benefit when they retire. It's usually calculated based on the average salary during the end of their working career. For example, they may take the average of their salary for the last three years they worked, then pay the employee 80% of that per year, for the rest of their life. The pension plan (employer) is obligated to make those payments whether the plan is fully funded, under funded or over funded. It is a guarantee and an explicit obligation of the entity offering the pension plan. For corporations, the funded status is on their balance sheet.

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Do government employees see an actual line item deduction from their paycheck similar to a line item for private industry 401K?

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I can only speak for Louisiana but yes. For firefighters you typically contribute about 10% to your retirement a check.

Governor Piyush "Bobby" Jindal did something similar to this when he took the 1/2 $billion dollar fund in the State Employee's Group Insurance Fund to cover the deficit in Louisiana state government. This was money put aside from employee contributions as our ''rainy day fund''. Turned us over to a private company and kept our money.

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It's just that the state has decreased the odds of fulfilling that promise.

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Not really. The state has to make the guaranteed payments whether the pension fund is overfunded, fully funded, or underfunded. The plan was 160% funded and the state is transferring 110% of the assets needed into a new fund to pay those benefits. The plan has also been closed to new participants since 1977, so while there is always some fluctuation in the value of the assets and the liabilities, it’s almost a certainty that the fund has the assets needed to make benefit payments. Additionally if there is a shortfall, it doesn’t mean the cops and firefighters get less benefits. It means the state has to dip into the general fund to make those payments. They are guaranteed by the state, it doesn’t matter where the money comes from.

The difference between this scenario and social security is that there are actually assets in the Washington fund to pay these benefits. Social security has no actual assets in a fund, it is pay as you go. That’s not how it’s supposed to be.

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Very little from the state goes into a first responder pension. It comes from employee contributions, the city they work for, and investments made by firefighter and police retirement committees. Yet the state can take the money and put it elsewhere doesn’t make sense.

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Why do you people just post shite as if you know what you’re talking about without actually looking it up?

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Historically, the state was responsible for 77% of funding to address initial unfunded liabilities.

The total funding for LEOFF 1 was historically derived from:State: 77%Employers: 11.5%Members: 11.5%

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I have always felt public pension liability was certainly going to be a problem for this country one day.

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Agreed, but that's the opposite of what's going on in WA. Their pension was generating excess profits to the point where it was 160% funded.

What's going on here is that Democrats have taken the rare working liberal program and terminated it, most likely in an attempt to take possession of the funds to use for other programs (like LGBTQ+ANUS69 transition therapy and surgeries for toddlers or some other bullshite).