THAT’S DEBATABLE:Further study of pension costs?

Some fiscal conservatives have criticized Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recent formation of a commission to study the issue of rising state pension costs, calling it a political stunt. Carl DeMaio, president of the Performance Institute, a San Diego nonprofit that promotes government efficiency, called it a “waste of time” and said, “It is studying a problem we already know how to solve. We don’t need another study. We need the political will to fix this.”

Do you think the issue needs further study or are there plenty of solutions out there and state lawmakers just need to summon the political courage to fix the system?

I think that we always have to be mindful of the fact that in politics, public policy and how you actually get things done are often two different things…. I believe that the governor knows there’s a problem, most lawmakers up here know that there’s a problem. The issue is how do you go about doing something about it and survive…. I guess I look at the governor’s appointing of this committee as a smart move politically and one that I would see most any governor doing even if he knew what needed to be done.

The reason why you do such things is the public sector employee unions are very powerful. You don’t necessarily just charge up the hill guns blazing and die trying, you very carefully plan to take the hill. The governor, I think he knows he has to take this hill, but why charge the machine-gun nest to do it.

What it means is he’s not going to approach this very thorny problem in a very foolish and rash manner, he’s going to do it in a way that maximizes his likelihood of success.

Chuck DeVore

Assemblyman (R-Newport Beach)

I applaud the governor for confronting the challenge of pension liabilities. Success on this issue will require creative solutions with the involved stakeholders to overcome the natural reluctance to embrace change. By working together, I am convinced that Gov. Schwarzenegger will develop a solution that is fiscally responsible and attainable.

As we saw with the governor’s first attempt to address this problem in the 2005 special election, compromise and creativity are necessary to find the right solution. Unions aggressively opposed the governor’s previous proposal and see any change as an attack. While I understand their defensiveness, I believe we must keep working together to try to find some common ground. Otherwise we will be passing a huge debt on to our children and I believe that is morally wrong.

Van Tran

Assemblyman (R-Costa Mesa)

During the past few years, government agencies in California have been giving greater and greater retirement benefits to public employees. These pension increases have been granted without any fiscal planning on how the benefits will be paid in the future. They are part of a pension plan known as a defined benefit plan. Using a “credit card mentality,” the cost of paying these benefits is being shifted to future generations. That’s not fair, and this practice needs to stop.

Something needs to be done now. We don’t need another study. We need to implement a fiscally conservative approach that would require that any future increase in pension benefits be immediately funded on a pay-as-you-go basis. If elected officials in California would simply follow this process, there would be no pension crisis in California.

Our state’s elected officials must stop over-promising. They must have the courage to stop the many forms of pension abuse that a defined-benefit pension plan causes. A better type of pension plan, known as a defined contribution plan, would save billions of dollars and at the same time be fair to both the employer and the employee. This type of plan is successfully being used by most major corporations.

The bottom line in the pension debate can be summarized in the following manner. The credit cards need to be cut up and thrown away!

Tom Harman

Senator (R-Huntington Beach)