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Dear lakey,

Either you are very misinformed about Arnold's aborted move to reform public pensions, or you are trying to mislead people. The pension reform initiative would have simply converted defined benefit pensions into defined contribution pensions, like a 401k plan.

The fact is, under the current system, the State CAN raid the pensions whenever it wants to, because the money in the pension funds DOES NOT belong to state employees, or to pensioners, but to the Pension Boards, which are creatures controlled by the State.

Actually, if Arnold's plan were enacted your pension would be much safer, because the money invested would belong to YOU, the worker, and be kept in YOUR OWN account, not in a huge pool of money under the control of a board appointed by the politicians.

Also, remember that the laws governing the pensions were created by the Legislature, which could at any time amend the law, and put the pension money under THEIR direct control.

You should fervently pray that Arnold's pension reform DOES get enacted. The only reason it was pulled from signature-gathering last Spring is because the author, Assemblyman Keith Richman, did not provide any protection for disability and survivor benefit plans for police and firemen, so their unions stirred up a lot of negative publicity, mostly with lies about the Governor planning to starve their widows and orphans by cutting off their their pension checks.

The fact is, such plans could easily be covered by insurance programs, paid out of profits from the private accounts.

For a good idea of how beneficial private accounts would be, go to my brilliant friend Dick McDonald's website for his New Social Security Institute:

http://www.thenewsocialsecurity.com/

Regards,
Svensun