Letters: Stop pensions for convicted officials

February 3, 2016

Then-Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre), left, and then-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), talk to reporters outside Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's office at the Capitol in Albany after a budget meeting on Thursday, March 27, 2014. (Credit: AP)

I fully support the Newsday editorial board’s proposed amendment to the state constitution to keep public officials — and their families — from collecting their pensions when they break the law on the job [“Break the law, lose the pension,” Editorial, Jan. 24].

This is an amendment that is long overdue.

Margarete Susko, Port Jefferson Station

Paying pensions to elected officials who break the law doesn’t seem fair.

Good taxpaying citizens lose bus service, leaving us stranded with no option for transportation except maybe high-cost taxi service.

My solution is to take away the pensions from all of our criminal politicians and convicted law enforcement officers, perhaps enact a pay cut for all Nassau County politicians and restore bus service. Some lines may have low ridership, that’s true. However, to those riders, this service is a necessity.

Theresa Sokolowski, Bethpage

Bravo to Newsday’s editorial board for “Rising anger over politics” [Jan. 22].

This editorial is right on the money. Voter disgust with political corruption and today’s plutocratic system is palpable and nonpartisan.

The fact that even those pols who have gone to jail get to keep their lavish pensions is appalling. The fact that those who have not yet been indicted won’t fix the system is reprehensible.

One more fact that bothers me: In New York State, public pensions are free of state income taxes. Those of us who earned our pensions in the private sector must pay taxes on anything over $20,000. You’d think that New York would be more progressive than, say, Florida and Pennsylvania, where old folks aren’t taxed on their pensions.

Stuart Chamberlain, West Sayville

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