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Bevin Elaborates on 'Drowning Victim' Comment

Bevin Elaborates on 'Drowning Victim' Comment
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By West Kentucky Star Staff
Aug. 15, 2018 | PADUCAH
By West Kentucky Star Staff Aug. 15, 2018 | 12:26 PM | PADUCAH
After an interview Tuesday, in which Governor Matt Bevin compared state workers who are angry about changes in the pension system to drowning victims who panic and fight their rescuers, Bevin spoke about the situation again Wednesday morning on a Paducah radio station.

Bevin told "The Greg Dunker Show" on WKYX that he used an analogy that has been conflated and characterized into a personal attack on teachers and state workers. But he said those people are continuing to fight against their own best interests.

Bevin said the hard-working teachers have paid millions of dollars in dues to the KEA and unions who promised to defend them, but instead, those organizations helped elect the legislators and governors who fleeced the system.

"The previous governor never funded the pensions fully, never even submitted a budget asking that they be funded. Most of his budgets didn't even fund half of what was required by actuaries, and yet, the teacher's unions fell over backwards supporting him. Loved him. Why? Because he was of the same political ideology. And sadly, now we have the worst funded pension system in America," Bevin said.

Bevin said the ones who stand to lose the most are the men and women who are expecting their benefits from the crippled system - not the teacher's unions. 

He said, "They already have the union dues. They have the money, the power, the control, but they are misusing it and leaving their own membership out to dry."

Bevin said his comments aren't personal attacks, but his observations of the situation.

He said, "To try to conflate that into a personal attack is the exact reason why people have been wasting their money on teacher's union dues. Because this isn't about what's best for the individuals in the plan. It isn't about what's best for the plan itself. It's about silly things and about political points and about people being falsely outraged, and it's nonsense."

Bevin said teachers and other state employees who have been falsely represented for years should be outraged by the people in unions and the legislature who helped let the pension system get underfunded. Instead, he said, they're angry at him and the current legislators who are trying to fix the problem.
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