The Morality of Double Dipping

Shawn Rajanayagam of The Badger Herald has me confused. Earlier this week he penned an editorial in support of a bill which would "ban the practice of double-dipping, whereby state employees can retire and later return to their jobs".

First he says:

While double dipping may not be as financially burdensome as it appears on the surface, to claim that it isn’t unethical is patently ridiculous. Workers should not be able to “retire” for just one month and then regain their employment with the added perks of retirement benefits. Professor Burden’s suggestion that it’s not all that bad is morally abhorrent.

So to say that the practice is ethically sound is "patently ridiculous" and to say it's "not all that bad" is "morally abhorrent". Then later on he opines:

Technically, what these employees have done is legal, but it is certainly not ethical, and they should not be prosecuted. After all, they were only doing what the budget cuts had, to some degree, forced them into — but it is still a morally ambiguous practice, to say the least.

The notion that double dipping isn't all that bad is morally abhorrent yet the practice itself goes from being "not ethical" to being "morally ambiguous, to say the least". Let's go over that again. Defending the practice is abhorrent yet the practice itself is merely morally ambiguous. How odd. To say the least.

So what exactly is the ethical problem with state employees retiring and then returning as LTEs?

This is an important fact to note; the fiscal argument against double dipping is based on the fact that these people are embezzling taxpayer dollars for their own benefit.

Here's an important fact to note, Shawn: what "embezzle" means.

Here's how Miriam-Webster defines embezzle: "to appropriate (as property entrusted to one's care) fraudulently to one's own use".

Dictionary.com: "to appropriate fraudulently to one's own use, as money or property entrusted to one's care."

Oxford dictionary: "steal or misappropriate (money placed in one’s trust or belonging to the organization for which one works)"

Do you see a pattern here, Mr. Rajanayagam? Embezzlement involves fraud and theft whereas retiring and returning to state service as an LTE with no benefits involves two parties in which one exchanges his/her labor for pay. Where is the fraud here?

I know a gentleman who recently retired from state service and returned as a part-time LTE. He gets a pension because he and the state entered into a contract decades ago which said, in part, if he worked for a certain amount of time, he'd get a pension. This guy put in 30+ years and he is reaping the reward of that service. When he retired, that first contract ended. Bang! Zoom! Gone. Now that he has returned, he is working under a new contract which says the state will pay him X dollars an hour to work, no benefits. He is not getting an "added perk" of a pension; he earned that pension by working at the state longer than you've been alive. Where is the fraud here?

So when you write "these people are embezzling taxpayer dollars", you are accusing them of fraud and theft. If you have proof of fraudulently activity, then do come forward with the evidence. Otherwise writing what you wrote amounts to libel. What kind of jejune moral world do you live in where working for pay is ethically suspect?