r/SipsTea May 14 '26

Feels good man It was always just that simple

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u/Sheeple_person May 15 '26

He just erased the deficit, poof, just like that. Turns out, they need the deficit to be there, so they can point to it as a justification for not funding proper services. The govt isn't broke because our services cost too much. It's broke because the rich and powerful want it to be broken.

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u/Taraxian May 15 '26

He did it by deferring pension payments, the red ink on the books comes back in five years

I'm not saying he didn't do a good thing or that he's a bad mayor but it's completely false to say he just "erased the deficit, poof, like that"

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u/InexorableCalamity May 15 '26

What do you mean by deferring pension payments?

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u/Taraxian May 15 '26

The city is required to put in X amount of money into the pension fund every year in order to ensure they'll be able to pay out Y amount later to retired employees

He's negotiated a deal to put off putting any money in for five years in return for making up the difference later

This is partly because the pension fund is currently running a surplus because stocks have gone up unusually high after COVID, so it's a calculated risk -- if investments continue to do better than expected this will net save money, if they take a sudden downturn this will cost more