Everyone should have medical + pension + medical in retirement. How did America get to a place where healthcare and pensions are regarded as perks?

A pension is directly interchangeable with the 15% of wages you would otherwise need to save for retirement. Maybe less, to account for the (very high) risk of governments defaulting on their pension obligations.

That’s a nice sentiment - in that case we should all work in the public sector and and get those things...oh yeah....

I'm just surprised that people would propose to solve a problem by taking those things away from people.

That’s fair - and again think it’s a laudable goal.

It used to be that if you worked in the public sector you forwent a market rate salary in exchange for job security and a secure pension. Public sector employees are now making market wages + extremely valuable benefits which in turn are bankrupting municipalities.

In this context how do you tell a tax paying private sector mechanic, that his taxes need to go up in order to pay for the extremely generous union benefits of a public sector mechanic (who may make more than him)?

Lastly I would argue that municipalities have something of a fiducuiary duty to tax payers to get value for their tax dollar spent - rather than rewarding a voter block at tax payer expense.

How do you know what is a "market wage" for a NYC subway worker? It's not like you can compare them to someone doing the same job in the private sector.

>how do you tell a tax paying private sector mechanic [...]

How do you tell a tax paying public sector mechanic that they're going to lose their pension and health insurance?

That's not the point - if you are comparing wages you need to take into account benefits. $30/hour might not be great by itself, but $30 + $10/hour in benefits is.

I don't have a horse in this race, but remember that what looks "generous" to you in New York City is considered "table stakes for a civilised society" in Europe.