Megan McArdle and the Washington Post Are Upset About Public Pensions and Budget Deficits

It is widely known that for Washington Post columnists writing on economics, ignorance is an asset. Megan McArdle helps make the case in a piece on Chicago’s pensions that tells readers in its headline:

“Chicago kept saying it would pay for pensions later. Well, it’s later.”

The gist of the piece is that Chicago has seriously underfunded public pensions. This is true. Where McArdle combats reality is in implying that this sort of underfunding is typical for public pensions and also that the s...