The Mackinac Center is hosting an Issues & Ideas forum at noon on Tuesday in Lansing to discuss ‘The Detroit Bailout and Meaningful Pension Reform.”

The event will be held at the Michigan Restaurant Association. No registration is required and lunch will be provided.

Our speakers will be Richard Dreyfuss, a senior fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation in Pennsylvania and Stephen D. Eide, senior fellow with the Center for State and Local Leadership at the Manhattan Institute in New York.

Dreyfuss is the author of “Estimated Savings From Michigan’s 1997 State Employee Pension Reform Plan,” which showed that moving new state employees into a defined-contribution system has saved taxpayers as much as $4.3 billion in unfunded liability.

Eide, who focuses on public administration and urban policy, has written about municipal bankruptcy, including in Detroit, and how growing pension liabilities are crowding out funds for basic services.

“Legislators should oppose a Detroit bailout for many reasons,” said Executive Vice President Michael Reitz. “But to approve one without closing the pension system and continuing to burden taxpayers with billions of dollars of unfunded liabilities would be political malpractice.”

Fiscal Policy Director Michael LaFaive wrote about the issue in Sunday’s Detroit Free Press.

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