I don’t want to go too far down the rabbit hole of the pension issue, but the pension issue is a good example of something non-liberals consider a negative about liberalism that is more complicated than it appears. And in this case, there are some problems with this issue on both sides. (Please note, it’s pretty rare for me to state a “both sides” argument but it’s true in this particular case.)
On the one hand, there are significant issues with pensions in many states, particularly those negotiated more than 10 to 20 years ago, when awareness of the problems arose. The pensions negotiated in the 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90s often had numerous loopholes and exploits that caused the ultimate pension liabilities to be far higher than projected. That was combined with pension funding by local and state entities that relied upon optimistic-on-cocaine stock projections (we don’t need to fund these pensions very much b/c the stock market will solve all our problems!!). The result was that by 10 to 20 years ago, the long term projections for many public employee pension systems was looking really bad, with public employees receiving pensions much higher than private employees and with taxpayers projected to end up holding the bag. The response to this was pension reform in many states, plugging loopholes, using more reasonable accounting projections for funding, etc. This was a real problem but also a manageable problem, in most cities and states. However, some cities or states that had falling population or weak economic growth were in a real bind. This was the reality at the core of this issue; but then the right wing media machine has taken this legitimate but manageable issue and turned it into ZOMG!! PUBLIC EMPLOYEES ARE LIVING THE HIGH LIFE AND BANKRUPTING CITIES AND STATES OH NOES!!"
There’s a real issue here, and the culprits are not just public employees exploiting loopholes to max out pensions like mad, but also the public entities that failed to fund and implement the pensions in a reasonable way, projecting MAGIC GROWTH!! as the solution.
The real long term solution here is to establish reasonable sustainable pension systems, properly funded using reliable and honest economic projections. The vast majority of cities and states have done this going forward.
That does leave a huge “retroactive” issue which is what to do about the pensions which were accrued under the old laws and which in most states give the employees the contractual right to collect higher benefits. A lot of Republicans and many voters seem to be under the impression that we can just “tighten our belts” and cut these pensions but it’s not that easy legally speaking.
Most pensions are considered legally binding contracts in most states and in some states (like CA) pensions are considered deferred compensation which is a property right accrued during employment and paid later. For example, in CA, the higher pensions from the loophole-a-gonza days are considered vested property rights already earned by the retirees and the CA Constitution prevents the state from breaking those contracts. If the state tried to pay less, the retirees could go to court and get an order forcing the state to pay.
So the only solution to address the retro issue is either to bite the bullet and properly fund those under-funded over-paying pensions (which means tax increases now) or to negotiate with the retirees some kind of reduction. But what can the states and cities offer the retirees as consideration for reducing a big chunk of their income? The goodness of their hearts? The pride of being an awesome citizen? Would you take a 30% or 40% cut in income just to be able to claim you are a good citizen? In some cases, some of the worst loophole exploiters are receiving about triple the pension they would have post-loophole-closure so those people would be looking at 65% to 70% reductions in their retirement incomes? How are you going to convince them to trade that off? Calling them filthy leeches isn’t going to help.
It’s a real problem but it’s way more complicated than stated by right wing talk radio or left wing types who think “oh we should have just fully funded them back then”. It’s too late to unbreak the egg, and it’s also smoking dope to think the pensioners are just going to voluntarily give up a third or half their pensions or more so either big spending cuts elsewhere or tax increases are the only solution.