Free Republic

<p>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's instincts on public employee pensions are correct. The only problem with his proposal to rein in the cost of the state's retirement system is that it doesn't go far enough.</p> <p>Schwarzenegger recognizes that the state went overboard in 1999, when the Legislature and then-Gov. Gray Davis agreed to use a big projected surplus in the retirement fund to goose pensions. Lawmakers were told that the fund was so flush with stock market earnings that the benefit increase would be essentially free, and that costs to taxpayers for the overall retirement program would remain low for years.</p>