weekly political column. Tim Newcomb Last Friday, House Speaker
Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington) ducked and withdrew her proposal, made 10 days earlier, for closing the enormous gap of more than $3 billion between what s on hand in the state s pension funds and what s needed to cover pensions for retired state workers and teachers in coming years. Instead, she announced plans to appoint a summer task force to study the issue and recommend reforms to lawmakers in January. Of course, pension fund problems compound with time; waiting another year to fix them only makes matters worse. So let s call this the midterm report card, or perhaps the end-of-semester assessment in a tough, two-year course. And by tough, I mean two things should be acknowledged: 1. It will be difficult to come up with a solution that no one will like but everyone will deem tolerable. 2. It absolutely has to be done