Dec 10, 2015 3 min read

Jerry Sandusky will receive a taxpayer-funded pension of over $5,000 a month while serving time in prison for child molestation. There are hundreds of predators, convicted felons, rapists, murderers collecting taxpayer-funded pensions while serving time in prison.

Many of these criminals also receive federal, state, county/local municipal government pensions. Victims of these state paid criminals get little to no help from our state government. The most that crime victims can count on is a sympathetic look. It is no surprise that programs to help victims are slashed to save money.

Victims do not contribute enough to re-election campaigns. Our state legislature has known about these abuses for years. Every election year, our legislators, our wannabe legislatures claim that if elected, they will cut the number of legislators, reform/change/overhaul our state pension system. It never gets done.

Once elected, the subject of cutting the legislator, reforming the state pension system, free health care for life, walking around money, per diems, travel expenses, paid vacations, etc., etc., etc. are all thrown out the window. State lawmakers don’t worry about crime victims or education. They worry about funding their perks, about their big money donors, about keeping corporate taxes low to non-existent. Their concern is not crime victims, seniors, education, mental health, veterans or the disabled. Their concern is re-election so they can continue feeding at the public troth.

What do we get for all the perks we give our legislature? We get legislation like making English the official language of Pennsylvania. Education gets funded only if special interests, big business, slum lords, oil/gas industry do not have to chip in.

Next year, they will tell us the same old story, the same old lie, the same old, same old and the only thing that will change will be an increase in our state lawmakers perks and salaries. Those things will go up. For taxpayerd the fees we pay for government services, the taxes we pay to keep government running; those things will go up.

Nothing else will change. We will continue to be left hanging onto the phone while we wait to talk to someone that cannot help us with our problems. It does not seem to get any better. I don’t think they are all bad. I think they get their priorities wrong. They think they are working for themselves instead of us the people. Sometimes our legislators can make us all feel like victims.

So if you are reading this and no one has told you they love you today, I do.

James Sloan

Hopwood