Unions DO want well-funded plans, and they’ve fought against things like pension holidays (when the employers paid NOTHING toward retirement contributions) because they knew where it would lead. But the other special interests who are lined up fought the unions.
BTW, I’m fine if you want to get rid of taxpayer backstops, but ONLY if we get rid of backstops for **everyone.** Why should bondholders or other stakeholders be backstopped if public employees are not?
And since public employee pension benefits are deferred compensation (it is money the employees have already earned for services performed), we should also be able to claw back monies paid to private contractors if they don’t perform or if the public entities decides they can’t afford it, as well. Fair is fair, right? Or, do you think we should just penalize one specific group of taxpayer-backed stakeholders (who have had NOTHING AT ALL to do with the financial crisis); and if so, why?
