How Jeb Bush’s Union-Friendly Pension Law Could Haunt Him

[Omaha Steve]

Walker and Jeb BOTH helped police and fire. They wanted the political punch they come with and believe it or not, still have the public behind them. Jeb didn't help other public workers just like Walker.

OS



Former Florida Governor and potential Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush speaks to supporters at an early morning GOP breakfast event in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on Mar. 18, 2015.

Updated: May 6, 2015 5:03 PM

Democratic lawmaker calls it "the most union friendly bill I've ever seen"

Shortly after he was sworn in as governor in 1999, Jeb Bush signed a union-backed bill that some argue led Florida’s cities to massively underfund their municipal pensions. As he squares off against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and others in the Republican presidential primary, the law may come to haunt him.

“If you’re Governor Walker, you can say ‘I took on the unions, while he gave them what they wanted,’” said Andrew Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “It plays as something where he held the line, and Governor Bush didn’t.”

The law set a minimum standard for fire and police pension benefits and used state money to encourage cities to enhance pensions above those amounts. The goal was to increase pension benefits without letting cities simply pass their baseline obligations onto the state.

FULL story at link.