It amazes me how much attention PERS still gets. The proposal here is most likely illegal. You can't unilaterally and retroactively change the retirement plans under which people were hired and under which they worked most of their lives. You can change the plan for future hires, but the plans have been changed so dramatically over the last 20 years that the change would not have much impact. PERS is a distraction, a red herring. Benefits have been reduced over 20 times since 1995. The Court has allowed legal reductions. It has been utterly consistent about unilateral retroactive takings. The legislature may send out another illegal proposal the way they did last year, for political purposes, but it will have the same result: a waste of time, a diversion from the real tax and budget issues faced by the state, and--if it's like last time--a waste of a great amount of money and an intensified financial burden on state agencies. 

Oregon needs tax and revenue restructuring.