text: This is a tired argument.  Benefits were already reduced twice - once in the 90s and once in the 2000s, leaving retirements to public employees starting after those dates quite reasonable.  However, commitments to public employees who started before those reforms cannot be repudiated once those benefits have been earned under the Oregon Constitution, and, frankly, fundamental fairness.  I sympathize with the writer regarding his fixed income, but he should consider how he might feel if the federal government suddenly decided that his Social Security and Medicare benefits were too generous and decided to cut them.  That wouldn't be fair to him, of course, any more than it's fair to cut the earned pensions of public employees.