When House Democrats grilled Republican Rep. Ritch Workman about his reliance on Cato Institute findings in proposing a sweeping overhaul of the state’s pension fund, the Melbourne lawmaker tried to defend himself.

“As far as I can tell, the Cato Institute is both fair and balanced,” said Workman, channeling his inner Fox News in describing the libertarian think tank.

Almost 2 1/2 hours later, the House Appropriations Committee approved Workman’s pension bill (CS/HB 1405), on a 15-8 party-line vote, with police, firefighters and other public employees calling for lawmakers to kill the proposal.

Democrats opposed the measure, which would make 655,000 government workers contribute 3 percent of their pay to their pension plan.

Tags: Cato Institute, Fox News

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Republicans, state budget, State House, state pension fund, Unions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.