Andrew Cohen at Bleeding Heart Libertarians:
From the NY Times today: “Residents of San Diego and San Jose voted overwhelmingly to cut the pension benefits they give city workers. And they did so in a way governments traditionally avoid: moving to cut not just the benefits of future hires, but also those of current city workers.” (See the article here.) I’m sorry, but though I understand that the contracts with unions were in some sense illegitimate (they should not have been agreed to in the first place), breaking the contracts and leaving people without the income they came to expect (legitimately came to expect, in fact, since they likely would not have been in a position to consider how the government should not be able to agree) seems to me decidedly wrong. Change the future contracts, sure. But unilaterally changing contracts signed long ago? No. For more, see this, my first post on BHL.
Image via Bleeding Heart Libertarians
