David Cameron, Britain’s new prime minister, announced a “radical, reforming” agenda Thursday that arguably points to the central issue of the financial crisis: What to do about ineffective, avaricious, ever-expansive government. American legislators could learn a thing or two from Cameron’s plan. It includes partially privatizing the postal system, a “breaking open of the state monopoly” of the school system and, most importantly, ending what the Conservative leader calls the “apartheid” of public-sector employee pensions. United Kingdom public employees’ cushy retirement benefits officially cost about $22 billion annually, but the Financial Times puts the real cost at about $44 billion, a number that far exceeds the reasonable capacities of Britain’s economy.
