State of California is broke

Well, I didn't see the GOP complaining Davis' recall.

 

Davis was an idiot, but recalling any politician is just beyond stupid.

 

If my sample ballot was any indication, we're not getting out of this mess any time soon. All I read from the candidates were the same tired mantras: Cut taxes, don't raise taxes, eliminate waste, make everyone pay their fair share and yadda yadda yadda.

 

Two ballot measures Tuesday night took aim at pension reform in San Jose and San Diego. They passed by overwhelming margins -- 70-30 in San Jose and 66-33 in San Diego. The unions say the ballot measures won't hold up in court; we'll see, but clearly that's where the will of the people is.

It has been said, on this thread and elsewhere, that someone is going to need to make tough and unpopular decisions to get the state out of its hole. As it turns out, though, these decisions are neither tough nor unpopular. It's simply a matter of whether politicians who have been bought by the unions are going to side with their sugar daddies or with the vast majority of their electorates.

 

The public employee unions who own every legislator in this state are going to be verrrrrry unhappy.

http://www.mercurynews.com/elections/ci_20790991/early-returns-san-jose-voters-approving-pension-reform

Voters like Howard Delano of Willow Glen were tired of watching their

city shovel more and more tax money into government pensions far more generous than their own retirement.

"It's out of control," Delano, 60, said after dropping off his ballot. "Nobody gives me a pension."[/i/]

 

As we've been told many times, California has a Prop 13 problem. Not a spending problem.

It isn't a problem when Tony Villar's Los Angeles just has to pay an extra $105k to skirt the federal cap on pay for an agency chief.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-housing-pay-20120608,0,7980390.story

There is no spending problem. Just a Prop 13 problem.

 

One of the commenters on the above^^^^ article:
hopevsmath at 11:39 AM June 08, 2012

When was the last day we didn't have another article about a case of public employee financial abuse? Seriously, I think since the LA Times broke the Bell story and opened this hornets next of public employee greed, graft and corruption. a day hasn't gone by without another story of how the taxpayers have been ripped off and continue to be ripped off. One of my favorite exceprts from this article is - Guthrie's compensation, agency spokesman Eric Brown said, is comparable with other "agencies within the city." - so it's fine as long as it's comparable with other inflated pay packages within the city? Eric Brown shows yet agian the flawed mentality of some of our public employees. Following Brown's logic, I guess it would be fine if Guthrie also stole money, cheated on his taxes and never showed up to work other than to collect his paycheck as long as that was comparable with the behavior of other agencies within the city. Those that share this mentality will find an escalating anger from tax payers and will either be voted out of office or fired and if this process takes too long they'll simply lose their job when CA goes bankrupt and these jobs won't even exist. Either way, this abuse will end.

 

Like France in the 18th Century, it will take a revolution to accomplish anything.

 

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/06/26/3727843/six-figure-pensions-soar-for-california.html

Thousands of newly retired school administrators will earn more during retirement than most Californians will make during their working careers.

The number of educators receiving $100,000-plus annual pensions jumped 650 percent from 2005 to 2011, going from 700 to 5,400, according to a Bee review of data from the California State Teachers' Retirement System.

...

A series of benefit enhancements a decade ago also explain the rise. Experienced teachers and administrators can now make a pension equal to 2.4 percent of their highest pay for each year of service, up from a flat 2 percent. Largely as a result, more than a third of the state's six-figure pensioners earn more each year in retirement than they ever did on the job.

 

This sounds like a Prop 13 problem. I'll wait for someone a continent away, who lived here during the Clinton administration, to confirm it.

 

Ungovernable state, I tells ya. That is why I moved to a banana republic.

 

Oh, I'm sure Banana Republic is against high pensions for public employees.....