Don Brunell - Fixing Washington’s pension problems

You see a lot in the news these days about public employee pension costs pushing cities and states to the brink of bankruptcy.

Private sector employers confronted the same crisis years ago and are still struggling with it today. Eager to avoid costly strikes, companies agreed to long-term pension benefits they couldn’t afford, hoping to find a way to fund them later.

The focus on employee benefits intensified in the 1970s when President Nixon implemented wage and price controls. Employers couldn’t increase wages, so union leaders’ focus turned to employee benefits. By the time the controls wer...