The practice of some communities allowing their police and firefighters to base their pension on their last-year salary, rather than an average of their last three or five years, has stoked anger among readers. The pensions are gaining attention because the municipalities in which they are offered are scrambling to find money to cover the agreements. Readers are outraged at the politicians who entered into the agreements and at the unions, who they accuse of plundering the wallets of average taxpayers who don’t enjoy anywhere near the same benefits, if they even receive a pension at all.

Read the story, including two databases, here; then tell us what you think.

The shame is the ones approving these rip-offs. How many people in the private sector receive a pension anywhere near this. … Out of control. How many people even have a pension left?

Anyone posting a comment in protest of this pension benefit should have to be willing to enter just one burning building just one time to save someone else’s life. Most aren’t willing to do it even once. What price do you think is fair for repeatedly risking one’s own life and health to save the lives of others? Shame on you.

This is a slap in the face to the taxpayer during these hard economic times when we are all supposed to tighten our belts. Congress, the President and the unions will destroy the American economy, inflation and extraordinarily high taxes will follow and the dollar you and I have saved will be worth zilch.

Stop complaining. If you want that type of retirement benefit, than sign up for your local police or fire test. Corporate America always turned their noses up at cops and fireman, and everyone wants to be one now that times are tough in the financial world. … They deserve everything they get and more!