This

 

Haha. Agreed. But I had about enough of that last week.

 

Fair enough.

 

It's hard for a local government to build a rainy-day fund. It makes perfect fiscal sense, but there's no end to the needs of the people that the government serves. So it's a tough argument to say "we are going to not spend this money to help the constituents now because we think we might in worse shape later".

The people who need help "now" make a loud and powerful case and naturally every penny (or more) gets spent. Or, the fiscal conservatives simply get voted out.

The pension commitments are a time-bomb. Cities have no way to control their future obligations while the employees are on a fixed benefit plan. It's easy to see how a city can reach a tipping point of owing so much to retirees they can't provide services. It's surprising more cities haven't crashed like San Bernadino, Stockton and Vallejo.

But how to fix it? Calpers has iron-clad contracts with every local government. The governments cannot get out of the deal without massive buyout penalties that no one wants to pay. And why would they? The employees receiving the benefits are often the biggest supporters of the incumbents.

It's going to take more crisis and collapse before people wake up and decide they are willing to make hard choices about how to fix it.