Squandering their future

Study: Cost high to fix public pensions — (CNN) — American taxpayers would have to pay anywhere from $329 to $2,475 annually per household for 30 years, depending on what state they live in, to remedy the crises in their public employee pensions, a new study said Wednesday.

The study calculated the tax increases needed for the full funding of state and local pension systems in the United States over the next 30 years, according to authors Joshua Rauh of Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Rochester.

Nationally, the average increase for households would be $1,398 annually for 30 years, said Rauh, an associate professor of finance.

That business described above is the mere tip of an iceberg. What a crushing legacy of public debt our generation has left for our children and grandchildren. Outrageously selfish and irresponsible don't begin to describe it. And, even so, the Obama Democrats' continuing systematic attack on the productive base of the economy continues unabated, which will make it very, very difficult for those generations to dig themselves out.

The political temptation of redistribution, of buying political power by encouraging the idea that everyone has a moral right to other people's money, is the worm in the apple that eventually poisons the tree. It took a while, but here we are, trying to figure out how to redistribute massive, compounding debt. Nobody, you may have noticed, steps up and claims a moral right to that.

At best, decades of sacrifice and diminished prospects will be required of people who did nothing to create the mess that is being left for them to clean up. I'm surprised that there isn't already more anger about this, but it would certainly be justified, and I fully expect it is coming. We can only stand in the dock and plead guilty; there can be no defense or excuse for what has been done on our watch. Blame won't be redistributed, either.

Byron