Government: fix, don't nix.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: TILTING at windmills - On managing government workers' salaries and pensions - Brief article

Even liberals are now waking up to the danger of the United States becoming another Greece--a country where the public sector is consuming far too much of the nation's economy. What worries me is that the awakening will encourage blind anti-governmentism that cuts all programs without regard to their merit. Some can be cut, but many functions of government are crucial, demanding improvement, not elimination. Cuts can be made in salaries and pensions, which have in many cases become too generous. On average, government employees now make more than those in the private sector and usually have far better pensions. Automatic raises coupled with tenure have often resulted in civil servants making more than either their specific role or their ability merits. Pensions are often overly generous, in that they can be earned too early, as low as age thirty eight in law enforcement...