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In some cases, managers and employees have secured pensions beyond their original base salary. It is wrong, the people doing it know it's wrong, and we have to put an end to it.

We can't be paying pensions to the next generation of federal workers when hardly anyone in the private sector gets them.

Public employee unions, in their defense, say politicians have unfairly made them into simplistic bogeymen, responsible for problems that have myriad causes. Not all government workers receive generous pensions, they note.

A generous basic state pension is the least a civilized society should offer those who have worked hard and saved through their whole lives.

Most private-sector folks don't get a pension.

My view is pensioners don't have the one option that people of working age have. They can't really increase their income, because they are no longer able to work.

Our government works should be treated fairly and appropriately; they should have a decent retirement, but not a gold-plated system where they can retire multimillionaires in their 50s.

Some government workers are dedicated and work hard, but most of them are just waiting to retire.

We have so many people retiring that we do not have enough people paying into the system to be able to provide the benefits for those collecting those benefits.

The do-it-yourself version of pensions is a flop, as many Americans have painfully learned.