It’s been said before and will be said again, but still worth noting: The bipartisan U.S. Senate report on the financial meltdown concludes that, as Calitics notes:
Our financial crisis and resulting recession occurred as a result of risky, unethical and likely criminal behavior by reckless Wall Street institutions and the regulators that failed to stop them.
In other words, the worst of the recession — and the plummeting economy, and sharp loss of revenue to states, cities and counties, which precipitated several rounds of bloody budget cuts — wasn’t caused by labor contracts, or pensions, or local government waste and bloat.
I’m not saying that pension reform shouldn’t be part of the solution, but let’s all keep this in mind. I don’t see anywhere near the same push for financial-sector reform and givebacks as there is for union givebacks. And they ought to be at least in the same discussion.