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SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California's rapid economic decline has prompted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to propose what once was unthinkable — rolling back generous pensions in a state heavily influenced by public employee unions.
The Republican governor said he's motivated by the need to save money. California has at least $63 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, an amount equal to roughly two-thirds of all annual general fund spending.
The concern is shared across the country, as local and state governments wrestle with hundreds of billions of dollars in unfunded public employee pension and retiree health care costs.
New Mexico this year approved longer work requirements — from 25 years to 30 years — for state employees starting in 2010.
New Jersey last year raised the minimum age to qualify for benefits from 60 to 62.
Kentucky now requires new police hires to contribute 1 percent of their pay to help cover retiree health benefits.
And Georgia has started a hybrid plan for new state hires that blends a defined-benefit pension — with set payments based on salaries — and a 401(k).
In California, Schwarzenegger dropped long-term pension reform from negotiations with lawmakers to close the state's $24 billion budget deficit. He said this week that he would press for pension reform now the state has enacted revised spending plan.
"Again, everyone understands we are running out of money," he told reporters. "We cannot continue promising people things that we cannot deliver on."
His proposal would not change the pension system for current workers, but would lower benefits for new employees. His office said such changes would save the state some $95 billion over 30 years.
His administration has estimated that unfunded pension liabilities — money the state has promised to pay without earmarking where the funds will come from — could be as high as $300 billion if current investments fail to generate the projected returns.
But the reform proposal met with quick resistance in a state where large public employee unions contribute heavily to Democrats, the state's majority party.
The potential for reduced retirement benefits adds to concern that California will not be able to attract qualified employees, said Christopher Voight, executive director for the California Association of Professional Scientists.
For example, he said, the state needs microbiologists to test for swine flu, but has a hard time keeping them because they tend to leave for better pay at private labs.
Schwarzenegger wants to start by undoing a retirement package passed by California lawmakers in 1999 and signed by then-Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat.
Most state workers can retire as early as age 55. Their pension is based on 2 percent of their final salary multiplied by the number of years they worked. The payments rise with inflation.
For example, a civil servant with 30 years in state government who made $70,000 a year could take early retirement at 55 with an annual pension of $42,000. Under Schwarzenegger's proposed reform, they couldn't retire until age 60.
Employees in high-risk jobs — such as firefighters — can receive up to 90 percent of their salaries if they retire at age 50. Under Schwarzenegger's plan, they couldn't retire until age 55.

Retirees also are promised health care coverage for themselves and their families, a benefit that can cost the state $1,100 a month per retiree, according to the California Public Employees' Retirement System. Schwarzenegger's proposal doesn't tackle health care.

To reformers, changing the state's retirement system is as much a matter of fairness as one of cost.

The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found that while 43 percent of private employers offered some type of retirement plan in 2006, they tended not to be as generous as public employee packages. Private-sector workers also rarely receive retiree health care coverage, meaning most have to work until they can start drawing Social Security and Medicare at age 65. Workers born after 1960 will not be eligible to retire until 67.

"People are upset," said Schwarzenegger's economic adviser, David Crane. "They don't have a defined benefit plan and ask, 'Why am I paying for someone else to have one?'"

Public employees do shoulder a portion of the commitment, contributing to their retirements through payroll deductions.

Ed Hass, 54, said private companies need to do more. He found a job with the Department of Corrections in 2007 in large part because of the guaranteed pension.

"You've heard of Enron, right?" he said. "Not only did (employees) all lose their jobs, they lost all their retirement tied to Enron's stock."

Government workers and their union representatives often say the more generous pensions offset lower pay.

But the latest U.S. Census survey, from 2007, shows the average annual salary of California state government employees was $53,958, compared with $40,991 for the average private-sector worker.

"The pension benefits for public employees in California are extravagant and they are going to bankrupt cities and counties, along with the state," said Keith Richman, a former state assemblyman who said he plans to launch an initiative campaign to change state employee pension benefits.

HARTFORD, Conn. – Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd said Friday that he has been diagnosed with an early stage of prostate cancer and will have surgery in early August, but the prognosis is good and the illness will not affect his plans to seek a sixth term next year.
Dodd said he was diagnosed about six weeks ago during an annual physical, but said he feels OK and is "very confident we're going to come out of this well."
"I'm running for re-election," he told reporters at his Hartford office. "I'll be a little leaner, a little meaner, but I'm running."
The 65-year-old Democrat is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and is playing a lead role in Congress' attempt to overhaul the nation's health care system. He took that role while his close friend, Senate health committee Chairman Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts fights his own battle with brain cancer.
Prostate cancer is the most common form of the disease in men in the United States, affecting about 6.4 out of every 100 men in Dodd's age group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dodd is facing what's expected to be a tough re-election campaign.
The Senate ethics committee is probing whether Dodd violated standards of conduct when he received mortgage discounts from the VIP program at Countrywide Financial Corp.
Dodd, whose committee oversees the banking and financial industries, insists he did not receive special deals. He produced a report showing other lenders would have offered the same rates and said he thought the VIP program simply meant enhanced customer service and the ability to get a live person on the phone.
Dodd also was caught up in the furor earlier this year over $165 million in bonuses American International Group Inc. paid some of its employees in 2009 while receiving billions of dollars in federal bailout money.
After first denying it, Dodd admitted he agreed to a request by Treasury Department officials to dilute an executive bonus restriction in the big economic stimulus bill that Congress passed in February. The change to Dodd's amendment allowed AIG to hand out the bonuses and sparked a blame game between Dodd and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Dodd is the son of former Democratic Sen. Thomas J. Dodd. He was elected to the U.S. House in 1974 and was re-elected in 1976 and 1978, and was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980.
He ran unsuccessfully for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, dropping out after failing to gain support in the Iowa caucuses.
He is married to the former Jackie Clegg. They have two young daughters.

An open park bench in al-Mahdi Park, Tehran. the bench seat is a traditional seat installed in automobiles, featuring a continuous pad running the full width of the cabin. a punishment bench is used to have a punishee lie (and often be tied) down on for the administration of a corporal punishment, after which it may be specifically named, e.g. caning bench.

Various types of benches are specifically designed for and/or named after specific uses, such as a Bench (weight training) is used for fitness exercises, such as the bench press which is named after its use of a bench a Communion bench is not used as a seat Piano benches offer usually one person seating and are height adjustable. a spanking bench, such as a caning bench, is specifically designed for a spankee to lie upon, possibly strapped down, while submitting to paining of the posterior Swing seats are independently movable, suspended benches, used for play or as a relaxing porch swing. a courting bench (or kissing bench, or tête-à-tête): a two-seater with the seats pointing in opposite directions, thus almost facing each other. A friendship bench in a school playground is where a child can go when they want someone to talk to. The bench in a courtroom, behind which the judge is seated.

Park Benches

WEDNESDAY, July 29 (HealthDay News) -- Boston scientists have
succeeded in making brown fat out of mouse and human cells, a feat that
takes scientists a step closer to victory in the fight against obesity and
type 2 diabetes.

Brown fat is "good" fat because it burns energy, acting as a furnace,
to help regulate body temperature by generating heat. The more of this fat
you have, the leaner you tend to be.

"Brown fat is necessary for thermogenesis [heat production], to prevent
shivering. It basically burns off calories," explained Dr. Jacob Warman,
chief of endocrinology at The Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York City.
"It's healthy. It keeps your weight down. Thinner people have larger
amounts of brown fat."

White fat, on the other hand, stores calories and contributes to
obesity.

"This could be very important research if it pans out," said Dr. Spyros
Mezitis, an endocrinologist with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "It
could provide a lot of opportunities for new therapeutics. We don't have
any drugs that really work well to control weight gain."

The paper appears online July 29 in the journal Nature.

A 2007 paper, also published in Nature by the same team,
discovered that the protein PRDM16 could transform immature cells into
brown fat.

Earlier this year, three separate groups of scientists on two
continents independently verified that adult humans possess this slimming
form of fat, which was thought only to be present in children and
rodents.

"Several papers found that humans have a lot of brown fat, contrary to
previous reports," said study senior author Dr. Bruce Spiegelman, a
professor of cell biology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

Now the team reports that PRDM16 has a collaborator, the protein
C/EBP-beta. The two work together to propel various types of cells
(including adult mouse and human skin cells) to morph into brown fat. Once
transplanted into mice, these galvanized cells turned into energy-burning
brown fat.

"We have our hands on a molecule that can turn cells into brown fat,"
Spiegelman said, and the findings could eventually lead to a couple of
different treatment possibilities.

One would be to take cells from an actual patient, "treat" it with the
PRDM16 and C/EBP-beta combination, then inject it back into the patient
with the hope that it would promote the creation of brown fat.

Another possibility would be to create a drug that would make brown
fat. "That's a more conventional route," Spiegelman said.

"A combination of genes [proteins] are playing a role. It's not just
one gene," Mezitis said. "We need to understand the pattern. We know the
individual genes that may play a role, but we don't know the pattern."

More information

The U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on
obesity.