I would highly recommend that someone investigate the unfunded liability of Washington state’s $8 billion deficit in public pensions and start the dialogue to fix this mess that Olympia doesn’t seem capable of fixing.

It is the media’s job, as the watchdogs and checks and balances, to keep the citizens informed as to what their government is and is not doing on our behalf.

This problem of unfunded liability in pensions will bankrupt our state much like California is experiencing.

It is my opinion that Washington should get out of the pension business entirely. There is no reason why public workers should not be receiving Social Security benefits and the opportunity to invest in 401K’s just like the rest of us.

We pay their wages and health benefits and are being asked to fork up their pension benefits also?

The private sector did away with pensions for its employees because they saw the Ponzi scheme that would soon sink their companies.

They switched to Social Security and 401Ks only. It’s high time our state and local governments did, too.

There’s no reason why public employees should get to retire at 80 percent of their pay at age 55 (or early retire at age 52), when we can’t retire until 65 or 66 (or early retire at age 62).

Who is the boss, them or us?

Remember though that this will be a tough battle because 40 percent of the workforce now works in the public sector.

We must act now while we still have a majority of 60 percent in the private sector to change things. We do not want to wait until the tipping point of 50-plus percent are in the public sector and Washington turns into Greece.

Pauline Cornelius is an Olalla resident.