Case Studies of Putting Public Funds in Stocks States from Texas to Connecticut Show How Clinton's Plan to Fix SocialSecurity Could Work

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For all the controversy surrounding President Clinton's plan to invest Social Security money in the stock market, you'd think the notion was radically new and dangerous to the republic.

New it isn't. States have been investing public pension and school funds in the equity and bond markets for years. As for dangerous, that seems to be a matter of opinion.

Some economists - including Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan - are wary of such programs. They say politics would inevitably creep into the decisions of government-run stock funds, bringing a heavy-handed influence to Wall Street and often poorer results for pensioners. Yet several states have …