The Obvious Message of Jerry Brown's Pension
Posted By _Roger L Simon_ On August 13, 2010 @ 2:46 pm In
_Uncategorized_ | _50 Comments
<http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2010/08/13/the-obvious-message-of-jerry-browns-pension/?print=1#comments_controls>_
A kerfuffle surrounding a clandestine Jerry Brown pension is generating
a lot of Drudge action on this lazy August Friday. Servers at the
Watchdog blog
<http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2010/08/13/the-mystery-of-jerry-browns-pension/62501/>
^[1] of the /Orange Country Register/ that broke the story are bogging
down. Keep clicking on it. The report is amusing. In fact, it's a bit
more than that....
It seems California's one-time and now aspiring governor Jerry Brown has
been drawing down a healthy pension from the state --- perhaps
double-dipping --- causing a mild embarrassment to Jerry that could grow
into something more than mild. At the moment he is locked in a tight
race with Meg Whitman.
What's troubling in all this is not that Brown makes a good pension ---
or even than there may be some discrepancy about how much he makes
versus how much he deserves. It is that the whole thing is SECRET! (rare
use of caps and exclam very deliberate).
Let's think this through for half a second. At a time when pension funds
are bankrupting or potentially bankrupting states all across the
country, when aging populations are forcing the reconsideration of all
sorts of social security programs on practically every country on Earth
(countries that have them, anyway), and when the state of California ---
the sixth, or is it seventh, biggest economy in the world --- is about
to, once again, pay its employees with vouchers because it's got
zippity-do-dah in the bank, some officials of that state are receiving
pensions whose size and identity we do not know and /are not allowed to
see/.
Yes, there are secret state pensions in California. (Sounds like
Novosibirsk, doesn't it?) And we the citizens of that state are paying
for them!
There is only word for this: criminal.
This mysterious fund whose beneficiaries you are not allowed to know
about (even though you are paying for them) is called the Legislators'
Retirement System
<http://www.calpers.ca.gov/index.jsp?bc=/about/benefits-overview/retirement/lrs-benefits.xml>
^[2] . It was supposed to have been reformed, but evidently it wasn't.
Who's responsible for that little oversight, I'd like to know.
If Jerry Brown were a public official worth /re/-electing, not only
would he completely disclose everything about /his/ pension at this
point, he would also call for a new law that makes all --- and I mean
/all/ --- publicly-financed pensions totally transparent.
We're paying for them. We have a right to know /who/ is getting them and
/how much/ they are getting. It's so laughably obvious, it's astounding
there isn't such an ironclad law already.
It will be interesting to see if Jerry does this. Although a cool guy on
the surface, with all the best Zen moves of an aging-Boomer, in the
crunch he has almost always shown himself to be a coward and to behave
and act in the tradition of the hack liberal pol, pandering to interest
groups and preserving the status quo ante.
Only in this case the status quo ante is a disaster. I am reminded of
the lyrics of Woody Guthrie's classic "Do Re Mi":
/California is a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see;
But believe it or not, you won't find it so hot
If you ain't got the do re mi./
Well, right now most of us don't got the do re mi, not just those poor
migrants Woody was writing about. The whole state is on the brink of
collapse --- from the redwood forests to the Whiskey a Go Go. Pension
transparency is just the tip of the iceberg of what needs to be
reformed. But pension transparency is a good place to start, because if
we are to avoid permanent bankruptcy, a number of these pensions are
going to have to be cut substantially. There's no other way I can think of.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article printed from Roger L. Simon: *http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon*
URL to article:
*http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2010/08/13/the-obvious-message-of-jerry-browns-pension/*
URLs in this post:
[1] Watchdog blog :
*http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2010/08/13/the-mystery-of-jerry-browns-pension/62501/*
[2] Legislators' Retirement System:
*http://www.calpers.ca.gov/index.jsp?bc=/about/benefits-overview/retirement/lrs-benefits.xml*
Copyright © 2010 Pajamas Media. All rights reserved.
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