ERASING ACCOUNTABILITY ARNOLD LEADS CHARGE TO SHRINK NECESSARY INSTITUTIONS.

Byline: Cruz Bustamante

WHEN Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used his State of the State speech to announce plans for overhauling public pensions, it was more than just a call for reform.

He was firing another salvo in a national campaign to gut the power of public pension funds, which have been leading the charge for corporate accountability.

It's been public pension funds, using the combined clout of their Wall Street investments, who've gone after the Enrons, WorldComs and other corporate shysters who severely damaged our economy and many small investors earlier in this decade.

The corporate reform movement, as it is known, has been fighting to curb excessive salaries and billion-dollar executive pensions, strengthen accounting standards and expose inflated stock schemes. It's also gone after brokers who've accepted kickbacks for selling a company's stock due to commissions, not because it was best for the client.

That provoked a backlash among conservative ideologues and corporate connivers who are eager to smash anything resembling increased transparency.

One of the former is Grover Norquist, who heads a Washington-based pit of reactionaries called Americans for Tax Reform. When Norquist is not ranting on behalf of school vouchers and privatizing Social Security, he fights everything to do with government. As he's said, he wants to starve government ``to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.''

As for pension funds demanding corporate accountability, Norquist said: ``We want to take that power and destroy it.''

The day following Schwarzenegger's speech, Norquist announced that his organization would help promote and finance the campaign for Schwarzenegger's pension scheme once it's on a ballot.

Next on the bandwagon was Sacramento's Pacific Legal Foundation, a crabby clutch of laissez-faire advocates, and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which took umbrage that pension funds are ``straying into corporate governance.''

None of those groups has shown concern over the fact that the California Public Employees' Retirement System and the California State Teachers' Retirement System estimate that they lost more than $1 billion to the corporate criminals at just Enron and WorldCom. I wish they'd strayed into corporate governance sooner.

Many people who worked for companies bankrupted by corporate criminals had their pensions invested in 401(k) investment plans of the type the governor would use to replace the defined benefit pensions of PERS and STRS. The governor should talk to some of those people - because they had heavy losses. There were people in their 70s who had to go back to work at doughnut shops and day-care centers. Others nearing retirement age lost their jobs and pensions, and then had to find other work where they will toil as long as their health will let them.

In California, reaction to the governor's plan from teachers, nurses, police officers, firefighters and others who get public pensions was universally negative. Most lack the time and expertise to manage investments. They want the pros at PERS and STRS to do it because they do it well.

Rather than responding to the criticism with working families on his mind, the governor made a broad attack on public employees with borrowed rhetoric from Norquist, saying he wants to ``starve the monster'' of government.

Never mind that California ranks 49th out of 50 states for the ratio of state employees per 10,000 population. Many of the state's vital operations, such as licensing doctors and inspecting nursing homes, are stretched to the point where their effectiveness is hit-and-miss.

What is this monster Schwarzenegger wants to starve? The monster includes our schools, our universities, our mental hospitals and our veterans homes.

People working for that monster are charged with keeping our food and water free of contamination. They educate our children. They protect us from the most dangerous in our society. They take care of the elderly. They rescue victims from car accidents and burning homes. And they fight for our country in Iraq and Afghanistan. Calling the public sector a monster demeans those who work on behalf of the people of this state.

We're in for a major fight to keep defined-benefit pensions and maintain government services. It's a fight that will be carried forward by those who are allies of working people. They need the support of all working people. Just because the governor hasn't targeted certain employees now doesn't mean that he won't come after them later.

We're in this together.