Former state lawmaker-turned-lobbyist Mike Veon of Beaver and other retiring or defeated legislators have been the subject of recent news stories related to their pensions.

One reaction to Veon's $50,340 annual pension (plus his $126,614 lump-sum payment) is to suggest that the former Democratic Whip in the state House did nothing wrong and was only playing by the rules. But it is critical to note that Veon, along with other party leaders, was instrumental in writing the rules that gave him such a generous pension.

Veon's 22 years of service in the General Assembly entitled him to the pension benefits reported in the media last week. Since leaving the legislature, Veon has set up shop as a lobbyist in Harrisburg.

Former Sen. Robert Jubelirer, R-Altoona, served 32 years in the state Senate and news reports indicate that he will earn a $90,934 pension, in addition to his $191,804 lump-sum payment.

The lump-sum payments for lawmakers are connected to the amount of salary they opted to have withheld from their paychecks, plus 4 percent interest.

While Veon, Jubelirer and other former lawmakers are entitled to the pension benefits described by law, they were the architects of the recent changes to the rules that are now rewarding them so richly.

Those rules, over years, have been adjusted to increase the post-employment benefits of former Pennsylvania lawmakers. But adjustments to pension increases rarely make the kind of headlines as do pay raises for lawmakers.

That difference was demonstrated by the public outrage over the now-repealed pay-raise vote of 2005, which received much more publicity than the so-called pension grab of 2001.

While public reaction to both self-serving actions by legislators was dramatically different, the financial import was not. The ill-fated pay-raise vote that outraged voters was, in reality, not as costly to state taxpayers as the pension boost will be.

The pension increase was achieved with a tinkering of the multiplier used to calculate pension benefits for state workers. Lawmakers gave themselves a 50 percent boost and, after protests and pressure from other state workers, increased other pensions by 25 percent.

Leading up to the pension grab, strong stock market results had produced a surplus in the state retirement pension funds and lawmakers could not resist taking the surplus by enriching their pensions — essentially voting themselves a deferred pay raise.

A prudent approach would have been to allow the surplus in the pension funds to remain as a cushion against future market declines. Instead, lawmakers grabbed the investment gains for themselves, just before the stock market began a serious decline. The result of the ill-timed, self-serving pension boost will be massive tax increases to state property owners estimated to begin hitting within five or six years.

The significance of the pensions received by Veon, Jubelirer and other lawmakers leads to several conclusions.

The extraordinary value of the larger pensions to former state lawmakers, combined with health benefits for life, is a major reason why most legislators in Harrisburg do everything in their power to remain in office.

Shifting the Pennsylvania legislature to a part-time status, with the corresponding reduction or elimination of perks such as pensions, would move Harrisburg away from the control of professional politicians whose entrenched power is behind so many of the recently reported legislative abuses. Such a shift would accomplish many of the same objectives as term limits, and would return state government to the healthier idea of a citizen legislature.

Veon, Jubelirer and others have feathered their own nests very nicely. But the voter anger that continues to drive the reform movement in Harrisburg should demand a scaling back of pension and other benefits.