[TheRealThing]

No sir the money was not appropriated between the years of 2002-2014. To the later part of the question. I think it is great to ask! Every two years the budget is made so I say it was used for other things. I would also point out that Senate budget and house budget nearly always went to committee and that is what we got.

So you're admitting the teachers pension money was squandered. I'm certainly good with that.

If some reporter did a story on Kentucky's present state of financial woe, it would seem that a good title for the story could be "When Chickens Come Home to Roost." Legislators have looked the other way for decades now where fiscal responsibility is concerned. And frankly, as I have pointed out on here now for some time, the weight of Kentucky's inordinately replete state welfare benefits has the shoulders of working Kentuckians noticeably bent. But past that on the larger scale, though the taxpayer may still be standing under that load, the added weight of federal hand outs (such as ObamaCare) will certainly at some point cause sudden collapse. In the final analysis, Democrats may not have 'been fer the werkin man' after all. Where do you think all that benefit money comes from?

So since 'the money' was used for things other than pensions, why would you say the teachers all want Bevin's political head on a stick? If for no other reason than patently obvious time constraints alone, I guarantee Beshear and his predecessors are the guys who made the decisions to spend the money elsewhere, and I guarantee they foresaw this day coming. They just didn't think it would be so soon. Given that we're talking about the retirement fortunes of the intellectual elite here, it is truly amazing to consider that though the true culprits in all this continue to walk the yellow brick road, the newcomer on the block in the person of Governor Bevin somehow gets all the blame. :igiveup:

Pension funds, are not made up of subsidies provided by the tax payer. I used the word appropriated only in the sense that union dues are paid, and applicable employee contributions are collected from teacher's paychecks throughout the term of their employment. And you agreed that those funds got spent. (Likely on goodies handed out to everybody but teachers, BTW.) If anything those funds should have been invested, not spent. They might as well have drop-kicked the money off a cliff, it's just as gone. But if government were to appropriate tax dollars to be used to fund teacher pensions in my view, that would be a form of extortion.