Letter to the Editor: Posturing on pension funds purely political

Columbus Dispatch
Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Why aren't more of us more worried? Now that they've protected us from the ever-present danger of fondling strippers after hours, our legislators have turned to influencing foreign policy, formerly the realm of the federal government. They're forcing Ohio's five public-employee retirement systems to sell off some $500 million in investments with corporations that have links to Iran and Sudan.

In our global economy, most large American corporations have such links.

This misbegotten idea will cost the five pension systems hundreds of thousands of dollars to accomplish and deprive them of more hundreds of thousands in investment income. These legislators mistake the adjective public in public employees' retirement systems. Public applies to the employees, not the systems nor the funds. Public employees are nevertheless private citizens, and these funds are not public money, but those citizens' hard-earned savings.

The employers' contribution is the same as private employers pay into their workers' Social Security accounts.

Why not make it fair? Require the same of private-sector pension funds. Then we'd all think, "Gee, if the legislature can do this to enhance their voter appeal, what's next? Nicking our health-care dollars to help pay for their re-election campaigns?"

Do these representatives actually think Iran and Sudan will notice? Of course not.

This is a flag-waving species of political pandering, and pandering is what we've come to expect of them. (Right, strippers?)

What's harder to fathom is why the five pension systems knuckled under before this legalized swindle was even out of committee, instead of letting it run its course through both houses, attracting the kind of publicity, testimony and debate it should have.

They don't have to pander; they've already got our money.

FRITZ DOUTHITT
Zanesville