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Good luck getting an MMT proponent to break the circular reasoning cycle and admit they are unfunded liabilities.
"But revenues cover it so it's not unfunded."
"Surpluses now are loaned to the general account for redemption later, which constitutes a future deficit, which will be financed by debt".
"But it's not debt, dummy, it's a surplus!"
"The Treasury counts intragovernmental holdings as part of the total debt."
"But only public debt counts!"
"It's borrowed, so it's a debt."
"But we owe it to ourselves so it doesn't really count!"
And so on.
Whatever they say, unfunded pension liabilities are quite literally on the books, i.e. actual audited financial statements, of states and municipalities (who aren't monetarily sovereign, obviously, thereby rendering most MMT philosophical ruminations pointless in this context), and this is pursuant to GASB 68 (accounting regulations). These state and local governments have these liabilities and must by law fling them upon young, future generations (of mostly non-pensioners).
It shouldn't be legal to "pay for" services we want today by issuing a sacrosanct promise that will come due 40 years from now and thereby be imposed on someone else who never agreed to that arrangement. But that is inherently what defined benefit pension style programs do. Pension benefits should be cut to the extent that they're unfunded. Whatever crying and pissing and moaning occurs as a result can and should be explained as "sorry, defined benefits were an idiotic idea, you were duped, these things are criminal, you lose."
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