Bankruptcy Better than a Bailout?

From Thomas Sowell, writing for National Review Online:

Bankruptcy conveys the plain facts that political rhetoric tries to conceal. It tells people who depended on the bankrupt government that they no longer can. It tells the voters who elected that bankrupt government, with its big-spending promises, that they made a bad mistake that they would be wise to avoid making again in the future.

Legally, bankruptcy wipes out commitments made to public-sector unions, whose extravagant pay and pension contracts are bleeding municipal and state governments dry.

Is putting an end to political irresponsibility and legalized union racketeering dropping dead?

Politics being what it is, we are sure to hear all sorts of doomsday rhetoric at the thought of cutbacks in government spending. The poor will be starving in the streets, to hear politicians and the media tell it.

But the amount of money it would take to keep the poor from starving in the streets is chump change compared to how much it would take to keep on feeding unions, subsidized businesses, and other special interests who are robbing the taxpayers blind.