[...] with public pension funds healthier and costs moderating, the pension foes' argument seems to be switching from comparative costs to comparative misery. They say it is unfair for public workers to continue to have livable pensions when workers in the private sector have seen their pension savings and opportunities shrink alarmingly.

The shrinking part is true, private sector retirement schemes are in a death spiral. Things have gotten so bad for them that, according to a Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies report, "most [private sector] workers, regardless of age or household income, said they could work until age 65 and still not have enough money saved to meet their retirement needs." In fact, only one private sector worker in five has any kind of secure pension these days. Do public pension foes really want to make this a race to the bottom with no winners?

The truth is that public pensions seem large only by comparison to the shell of what is left in the private sector. You've seen the numbers, CalPERS pensions average $25,000 a year; half receive pensions of $18,000 or less. Teacher pensions are not much better and actually far worse if you factor in that they don't receive social security. So, to make public pensions seem outlandish, the pension foes crop the picture so that all you see are the 2% of public retirees with pensions over $100,000. It's the number they brandish most often.

[...] Now public pension foes want to trade fair public pensions in for dubious, Enron-style retirement packages that can be frozen or effectively dismantled at the whim of public administrators, with teachers, police, fire fighters, and other public workers having no say in the destruction of their hard-earned benefits. They should be careful what they wish for.