State of California is broke

"We didn't have very many people looking out for the taxpayers when these deals were negotiated," San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed told Bloomberg.

Public employee unions on one side of the bargaining table and the politicians they paid for on the other side.

 

right -- because public employees aren't taxpayers.
prop 13: where i pay 10x the taxes even tho your house is equal to mine in value. that's fair.

 

YES!!!!!!!! poin, we're back to the prop 13 problem!!!!!!

Police salary/pensions doubling and tripling in the past 10 years has nothing to do with it. Prop 13! Prop 13! Prop 13!

 

Hopefully maberger at least lives in CA. Hell, I'd settle for west of the Missisippi.

And I love the impeccable logic: Robert Rizzo gets a $500k yearly pension from the city of Bell but its okay because, darn it, he's a taxpayer too!!

 

You know the (approximate) tax bill when you sign on the dotted line to buy the property. And you know if your home's value quadruples in 10 years that your tax bill won't quadruple. You can walk away. So yes, it's fair.

 

i do live in CA, and have for the last 17 years; do you?

robert rizzo: well played. but since you won't tell the audience, i will: robert rizzo actually was poised to make $650k/year on a pension, but he won't get that. he won't get $500K yearly either because he's been charged with felony public corruption for -- wait for it -- pension manipulation and abuse for himself and other city of bell officials. yes, rizzo is why a tacher or a cop shouldn't get the benefits bargained for, agreed to, and signed off on by city/state leaders.

 

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/06/robert-rizzo-bell-retirement-pay-slashed.html

Actually he will still get 50k a year. In jail i guess.

Firefighters, teachers and other public employee unions have bought the leaders with whom they negotiated, lock stock and barrel. Legal? I guess.
But don't stand there and tell me these were arms length negotiations. Don't pee on my leg and tell me its raining.

 

of course i know -- i bought. but you misconstrue the point. i am paying 2012 (or whenever i bought) post-prop 13 dollars. my neighbor may very well be paying in pre-prop 13 1975 dollars. he can't buy anything else with 1975 dollars -- he'd have to pay 2012 prices. so why isn't he paying 2012 prices for city/state services?

put another way: he's paying $1,000 a year or less for a $3 million property. for that price he shouldn't be allowed out of his driveway and into the street. anyone who's bought SINCE 1978 is carrying the load for anyone who bought prior -- kind of analogous to poindexter's outraged tax payers of today footing the bill for the outrageous benefits and salaries for past and present generations of teachers, firefighters and cops. Yet that demand on taxpayers is wrong, while the inequities of prop 13 are shrugged off with "we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem."

 

I shrug off the inequities of prop 13 because CA is among the absolute tops in the country in sales tax. In gasoline tax. In income tax. You are paying 10% income tax at around 42,000 a year. Give MORE tax dollars to these jackalopes? Fuck that.

 

Productive:

 

Yeah, I'm 100 percent convinced LA City employees are the only workers in the entire country who are watching the Olympics on the company dime.

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