Academic

SACRAMENTO BEE: Dan Walters: Pension hike of a decade ago backfires. ?A milestone on California?s ?

By Glenn Reynolds

SACRAMENTO BEE: Dan Walters: Pension hike of a decade ago backfires. “A milestone on California’s meandering journey toward fiscal insolvency occurred exactly a decade ago when the Legislature enacted a massive increase in state employee pensions on the expedient assumption that it would cost taxpayers nothing. Although the new pensions would generate almost countless billions of dollars in extra income for retirees in the years ahead, the CalPERS board, dominated by union representatives, told legislators that taxpayers wouldn’t have to bear the load because investment income, which was flowing into the pension trust fund from high-tech stocks, would continue indefinitely.” Shockingly, that turned out not to be the case.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on June 23, 2009 (boomark / email).