I'd like to recommend a solution to Pittsburgh's self-imposed budget crisis that is both practical and fair.
First, hire a forensic accountant to review every city budget from the year the pension program began to see which budgets shorted the pension fund. Or assume every budget shorted the pension fund, which is probably the case anyway.
Next, determine all city workers who in any way contributed to these budgets, tax all of their income and seize all of their assets at a rate not less than 80 percent. Since this probably won't cover the entire bill, I would then suggest a 1 percent tax on the Social Security income of all seniors, who by their votes certainly are more at fault than some 18-year-old college freshman and who also enjoyed what amounted to a tax break every time the city didn't fund the pension plan.
This would also be a nice way of telling the aptly named "Me Generation" that the youth of America will no longer allow them to kick the figurative can of their reckless overspending and debt into the future and onto our backs.
Aaron M. Barr
Penn Hills
