It's a classic problem in public choice: should a politician do what's right in the long run but costly now, or do what is expedient and get the applause from a vocal minority?

While some wags dismiss USA Today as the "McPaper," its longer reports can be rather good. Such was the case with its recent story on public employee pensions, called Pension gap divides public and private workers.

Among the findings of the article:

• In a survey conducted by the Congressional Research Service, public retirees had a median pension of $17,640 in 2005. Private sector retirees had a median pension of $7,692.
• The U.S. government's unfunded liability for employee pensions exceeds that of Social Security.
• The hourly compensation gap between public and private employees is growing; today public employees get on average $12.38 more per hour in benefits.

BusinessWeek offered a good write-up of the problem two years ago. "Public pension promises are draining state and city budgets," it warned.

State and local governments cannot discharge their pension problems; they are legal obligations that must be paid. That will likely require significant tax increases, cuts in services, or both--all to pay for the poor decisions of years past.

Public officials can hold the line on public pensions, thus offering a small (and thus unnoticed) benefit to the public at large. Or they can buy labor peace and perhaps electoral support by offering clearly identifiable, large benefits to a group of people with a clearly identified interest and power to make a lot of noise.

Guess which way the decision gets made?

A number of organizations have a look at the problem, including the Allegheny Institute (PDF), the Chicago Civic Federation (PDF), the Empire Center for New York State Policy (PDF), the Minnesota Center for Public Finance Research (PDF), the Pacific Research Institute (PDF), the Pioneer Institute (PDF), the Reason Foundation, and the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (PDF).

Among the solutions: align public employee benefits with the private sector.