Excerpt:Rhode
Island's rollback of public-employee retirement
benefits has turned the small state into a national battleground over pensions.
But little
known is that a key player in the campaign to curtail pension costs in Rhode Island was financed, in large part, by a Houston billionaire who
sees the state as an opening salvo in a quest to transform retirement systems
nationwide.
John Arnold,
a 38-year-old former Enron Corp. natural-gas trader who later founded his own
hedge fund, and his wife, Laura, were major donors to EngageRI,
a group led by local business leaders that pushed for the pension changes.