Score One For The Good Guys

by Trapper John

It's a truism at this point that with the aging of the boomers, health care and pension policy are going to become even more critical to the political debate.  We're certainly seeing that with the battle to save Social Security, during which the public has become increasingly engaged and opposed to Bush's privatization scheme.   Lost in the justifiable focus on Bush's plan to end SS, though, has been what is possibly even a more nefarious attack on retirement security -- Arnold Schwarzeneggar's move to privatize CALPERS, the California public employee pension fund.  CALPERS is the largest pension fund in the US, providing stable, defined benefit pensions to hundreds of thousands of California retirees.  It also happens to be the largest institutiuonal investor in American equity markets, and has in recent years taken a leadership role in policing the often rotten corporate governance of American companies.  In other words, it's been a boon to both its beneficiaries and to the public in general.  So it's natural that Schwarzeneggar wants to kill it.  And  the end of CALPERS, hoped his allies at the Club for Growth and in Congress, would be the beginning of the end for all defined benefit plans -- for true retirement security -- in America.

The Gropinator planned to put his measure on the ballot this fall.  He bet a lot of his vaunted personal popularity on the issue.  But the action figure found that Californians, like the rest of the country, don't take kindly to politicians -- however much they pretend to be something else -- mucking around with their retirement security.   Yesterday, the people of California handed Ahnold the first major defeat of his term in office.  The beautiful details are below the fold.

Schwarzenegger retreated Thursday from his ambitious plan to convert the state pension system to private accounts, part of his sweeping agenda for change in state government.  Opponents immediately cast Schwarzenegger's abandonment of the current proposal as a political defeat, a sign that he was backing away from his bold call in January's State of the State speech for an overhaul of state government.  The agenda he outlined then included automatic controls on state spending, teacher pay based on merit rather than on seniority, a new method of determining voting districts and the pension switch that he said would curb state costs . . . The initiative would have stripped public employees of death and disability benefits, according to an analysis by state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer.  That prospect enraged police, firefighters and other law enforcement groups, a formidable coalition that promised to mobilize against the measure in a possible special election this fall.

This is a huge win.  Make no mistake -- the attack on CALPERS was the first battle in a Republican war on traditional, defined benefit pensions.  And the defeat of the GOP's golden boy, along with his plummeting poll numbers, sends a clear signal to the bad guys that we will not surrender, and that we're fighting to win.

Comments

[Mike S]

I was afraid that the people here would not figure out how bad the Gropenator is. But thanks to a classic GOP over reach, they are catching on.

Calling the nurses "special interests" was his first big mistake. But being a knucklehead, he went even further and took on the cops and firefighters. That started the fall. Now the Teacher's union is running ads about his lies on education. You can't watch tv at night without seeing the ad at least once.

He still has the talk radio wing but his support is dropping like Bush's and he has a lot farther to go. He came in as an almost independant candidate, as opposed to the current extremist GOP, but has tied himself to the GOP with his boneheaded ideas and thugish behavior. We have a damn good shot at taking him down in 06, or is it 08?

[emptywheel]

Make no mistake -- the attack on CALPERS was the first battle in a Republican war on traditional, defined benefit pensions.

Yup, and also an attack on investor activism. Chamber of Commerce thought they could get Arnie's help to undercut those nasty environmental, pro-labor, and all around corporate responsibility nuts trying to keep corporations in line.

Mike S,

But everytime I see Arnie on TV he's beating out a cop or other uniformed opponent. What went wrong here?

[Mike S]

Maybe his tumah has affected him.

[matt b]

It's also important to note that Arnold is retreating stragically, but making it clear that he does not plan to give up on pension-gutting or his special election.

He's attempting to deflate the energy that the firefighters, nurses and others have brought to the fight and then get back to his agenda.

So we should celebrate the victory, but also recognize that until Arnold's power has been fully and permanently undercut, this fight should not be referred to in the past tense.

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