No one begrudges those who have served our country and no one wants to take away their retirement benefits from them. That’s a non-issue. By the same token, if we’re going to save those pensions, we have to make sure we can pay for them. And if we can’t, then people who were counting on receiving them in their golden years will be left with nothing. That is just not acceptable. And pension reform is already happening, whether the unions like it or not.
The problem is it is impossible to make a distinction in bankruptcy proceedings between pensions that run to firefighters and police and pensions that run to school administrators, city officials, and building inspectors the like of which we have seen in Bell California.