And right there is the biggest part of the solution. Bankruptcy should erase those unsustainable union contract obligations. Retirees won't be stranded. They can go on Medicare like the peasants who pay for the public sector profligacy. That might mean NYC employees would have to stop retiring at age 50 or 55, but my sympathy is limited.
Nor should we be afraid of the math on the pension side of the question. Public sector pensions are lavish. I do not want to see anybody lose his pension … BUT, if the unions and the pols have collaborated for decades to run up lavish promised benefits in underfunded pension plans, let the chips fall where they may. The injured parties are not innocent in this matter. A legitimate bankruptcy would slash pension benefits to the levels covered by actual cash reserves. That would still leave public sector retiree benefits far ahead of most people in the private sector. I can live with that. So can they.
Pensions and retirement are certainly nice ideas if you were born at the right time. But younger people are not likely to see lavish pensions paid for by others. And retirement at 55 or 65 might be an untenable idea. Of course, it’s part of the expectation now — part of the American Dream. But I expect more and more people to be disappointed in this and I think more and more people will work until they are 70 or 75. The notion that everybody retires with a nice nest egg and moves to Florida seems like a 20th century idea.
And certainly the taxpayers should wake up and realize that the “public servants” have been getting away with the sweetest deal on the planet. It’s a ripoff, and taxpayers should seek to pull the plug on that deal.
Public sector unions should never have been allowed as it was obviously an unholy alliance between politicians and the unions doomed to abuse and failure.