next_milenium
To all state employee haters:hamner75
Stop wasting time and go back to flipping burgers!
Class dismissed!
State workers are the backbone of all Californians. No furloughs, no pay cuts, or layoffs. Give us all raises and we will all start putting are money back into the economy and everyone will be happy.sealgaire
But, obviously you hate state workers, probably because you could not pass the entrance exam to get a job. Can I have a Big Mac, fries, and a medium coke please? Have a nice day.THESILKY1
Do you know for a fact, what will happen if you lay-off 100,000 State employees?tejouzi
Here is an answer to your statement. Half the businesses in the private sector will fold, and the other half that remain open, will not be open for long.
How is laying off thousands of state workers going to help the economy? You want to help the economy, TELL THE PRIVATE SECTOR TO STOPPPPPPP RIPPING OFF THE STATE!!!!! AND WASTING MY TAX DOLLARS BY CHARGING THE STATE TWICE AS MUCH FOR THE SAME SERVICE!!!!! Go take a math classCalifornia budget growth over the past 10 years:
The current deficit is $24 billion, which works out to about $2600 per family of four. (Is my math right?) Don't know about you, but if I got an additional tax bill of $2600 each year on top of what is already being confiscated I think I'd consider hauling butt.But maybe the public employee unions are right. Shut your mouths and pay up, burger-flippers.
(Thanks for the Instalanche, Glenn. And let me add that I find it interesting that so many California public employees denigrate fast food workers. I don't know why. Flipping burgers is honest work, it's tough work, and it's something (raises hand) that many of us have had to do at one point in our lives in order to pay the bills.)
62 comments:
Is my math right?
Roughly yes, if the population of California is around 37 million.
The pertinent point is that it is an extra $2600 per family PER YEAR, because once the state starts spending money, it never stops.
State workers are just terrified because they know their world is about to rock and rock hard.
The tap to the trough is being turned off.
Remember that California was a Republican state as recently as 1988. At that time, taxes were low and services were good.
Why such a shift? Demographics. Whites moved out/stoped reproducing and Hispanics moved in.
Now Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico are also drifting blue, for exactly the same reason.
Soon, all of America will experience the same.
If the state workers who posted at the SacBee website are right, there's only one chance for California to survive, and that's to put all of California's residents on the state payroll. After all, they're not far from that now.
I suppose those state workers who posted the above comments haven't considered one small possibility....
Namely, what happens if all those tax-paying burger-flippers simply stop paying taxes and flipping burgers?
Seems to me a lot of "essential" state workers would quickly starve to death both financially and physically.
Sorry, no sympathy here. I work in health care and hospitals across the country are laying off in part due to the economy and in part in anticipation of socialized medicine. If Obamacare pays like medicare then hospitals can expect a double digit % decline in revenues next year.
So SEIU workers are getting laid off? Welcome to the party! When revenue declines private sector workers lose their jobs, why should state workers be special? Oh, I know because the rest of us just flip burgers. Right, I'll think of that the next time I see another cancer patient who is alive today because I helped treat them.
Perhaps all the burger-flipper references stem from never considering any type of work other than A) burger flipper, or B) state employee. Too bad, when you think about it. A whole lot of economic innovation has come out of California during their lifetimes - and none of it in the public sector.
No sympathy is right. I left CA in 1995. I still visit but they'll never get another tax dime out of me. I hope every non-gov. worker leaves.
"How is laying off thousands of state workers going to help the economy?"
It gets 100,000 parasites off the dole. Hit the bricks, you deadbeats! Starve the Beast!
I work for the state and make a meager $30,000/yr. Laid off from escrow. If we could have a right to work state we'd be much better off. The SEIU sucks big time. Pay a fair share for their democratic views which I don't share. Am just working for bene's till hubby retires in 5-10 years. Yes, contractor's charge more to the state because the state mandates it. And mandates we purchase goods from prison industries when we could go to Office Max, et al, for much better, less expensive goods. CA is too messed up to fix. They should default, cancel all union contracts and start over.
I work for the state after being laid off from escrow. If CA would default, get rid of the unions, stop paying contractors more money than what you would pay in the private sector (somehow the state mandates they pay more) and layoff about 30,000 employees things might look up. Oh, also vote all the democratic a$$holes out of office, get rid of their per-diem.
This is not a hard problem. Estimate income, set spending at 90% of that, and trim spending to fit. Use any surplus to begin paying off debt.
I've worked in business where we cut staff by 30-40%. Its not pleasant, but it can be done.
A few simple steps to start:
1) across the board staff cut of 20%
2) stop pension accruals for state employees; convert to 403(b) [California has a HUGE public pension disaster on its hands - they can't pay what they have already promised]
3) outlaw state employee unions
4) outlaw teachers unions
5) get rid of gerrymanded legislative districts
Actually, the simplest solution is to outlaw public employee unions from contributing to, or endorsing, political candidates. As it stands, they own both sides of the negotiating table.
I used to flip burgers when I was younger in New York. Got paid $1.15 per hour. Flipping burgers was a definite step up from being a busboy and potwasher, so I was proud of my work.
Back then, any man could support his family working minimum wage, if he worked 80 hours per week.
These state workers are in for a shock. CA is bankrupt. They can march and demand their "rights." Let them suck it down or suck it up, whatever. Welcome to the real world.
The CA budget was flat for 5 years until 2005. I have had many business trips and vacations in CA over the years, and I don't recall that CA was any worse for having a smaller tax bite. Blame Arnie, blame the Donks, whatever. The fact is that if spending had remained flat, with adjustments for inflation, there would be no deficit. It's a spending problem, not a tax problem.
For those new to my blog and think I am a mindless basher, please review some of my old posts and you will find that I dearly love the once-Golden State.
Paul writes,
Ah, your math is sort of correct. Only about half, give or take, of families pay tax. They are on the tax eating side.
So, it's more like $5,200 per double income family/per year. Every year. Forever. Not to mention what is added on next year. And, the year after.
BTW, here is a list of the known 5,115 CALPERS pensioners receiving $499k-$100k pensions, plus benies per year.( next year will add another, what, 500?)
http://www.californiapensionreform.com/calpers/
Who are these "State Workers," are they the surly-nasties at the DMV or just the surly-nasties in Gubb'mint? After the 1991 reapportionment with Democrat control of everything we have a gerrymandered-secure Politburo who run California. And how come the "State Workers" don't seem to do anything but increase the budget bloat for their Feudal lords?
If the "State Workers" were flipping burgers where they belong then CA would be in a better place, but my vote doesn't count unless I leave CA and take my assets with me.
California state employees:
Mind your manners! Otherwise you'll be headed for the DPS (Dreaded Private Sector - thanks Howie Carr) to join the rest of us with evaporating 401K's instead of fat guaranteed pensions, no sicktime buyouts, and the HORROR of actually being fired or outsourced.
I'm a community college employee, so I suppose I work for the state...I'm certainly a part of the state employees pension system. Things cannot stay the way they are. To save the state, we need to slash the state payroll. No sector should be exempt, especially one so bloated, overcompensated, and redunant.
I has worked for the state for twunty years. The peoples that work for me are very dedicoted and believe the state can provide a solution to all problems you have. We earns all our money and you could not survive without us. Government needs to be bigger and hopefully one day, everyone will work for the government and then we will have peace and less pollution. you need me in government
I has worked for the state for twunty years. The peoples that work for me are very dedicoted and believe the state can provide a solution to all problems you have. We earns all our money and you could not survive without us. Government needs to be bigger and hopefully one day, everyone will work for the government and then we will have peace and less pollution. you need me in government
I have a simple idea. Why not just go into the state archives, dig out the 2004-2005 budget, and simply pass it again? Anything which wasn't in that budget disappears. Mass chaos would hardly result, because it's not as if society has fundamentally altered since 2005, and suddenly about, oh, $24 billion is cut off the budget... which would make it balance.
The public employees disparaging burger flippers reminds me of John Galt flipping fried eggs.
Those California civil servants don't seem particularly civil and they are certainly not servile.
For a certain group of people, the only employment alternatives are working for the state or flipping burgers. Been to the DMV lately? The reason those people are working there is because they can't be trusted to follow basic sanitary procedures.
Meanwhile, those of us who really are the backbone of California's economy, the engineers, the factory workers, the entrepreneurs, the software developers, the doctors and nurses, the farmers, the truckers, the accountants, the musicians, the filmmakers, and everyone else who gets paid with money that their customers parted with willingly, have to endure being bled by the parasites.
FUCK the public employees and their unions.
California should teach the rest of the nation what the end result of left-wing politics is.
On top of the state workers, let's not forget how many lazy bums and immigrants are supported wholly by the taxpayers.
My wife and I have our eye on San Diego when I retire. We have said that once I stop having an income that can't be taxed into the ground, California will be a nice place to live for us.
Uh oh. The State workers will be calling me a leech and a burger flipper.
So, it looks to me like California can just revert to the 2004 budget, and the deficit goes away. The state was already spending way the hell too much in 2004.
Incidentally, has anyone else noticed that it's the states with the highest tax rates that have the biggest budget problems? Why do you suppose that is?
Private companies will fold without them; they pump money into the economy, et cetera? Delusional... what can I say...
This is a perfect illustration of why I will never, ever, live in the People's Republic of California.
Dear state employees: the effect of 100,000 of you being laid off will be ZERO. Instead of drawing a paycheck from the state, you will collect unemployment. And you can sit on your lazy asses at home instead of in an office.
PS you wouldn't last a week flipping burgers.
Brian said...
"California should teach the rest of the nation what the end result of left-wing politics is."
New York already did... a certain type of voter will just refuse to learn...
Government services do not generate the economy. Government workers do not create new dollars, only recycle money. The only way an economy is to be strong is by producing and maintaining private business.
So when government workers talk about the effect of cutting government spending as being bad, they are only looking at the level of their own situation. For the majority of California's residents, the spending control will stop the burden of debt.
If this post depresses you, I have good news -- you can be depressed on a daily basis at PensionTsunami.com.
You can even sign up to get a daily headline summary via e-mail!
"Give us all raises and we will all start putting are money back into the economy and everyone will be happy."
In other words, give us more of your hard earned money, stupid burger-flipping idiot, then it will become "are" money and we will spend it better.
Hitching your wagon to public tax dollars is a very bad place to be. Looting the public for ever-more $s aside, the state drones are always bound to run out of enough the looted to support the increase of retired people.
"silenttype said...
I has worked for the state for twunty years. The peoples that work for me are very dedicoted and believe the state can provide a solution to all problems you have. We earns all our money and you could not survive without us. Government needs to be bigger and hopefully one day, everyone will work for the government and then we will have peace and less pollution. you need me in government
July 8, 2009 10:40 PM "
And here we see the average government employee. Seemingly uneducated with little to no attention to detail. They certainly have no concept of the fundamental differences between the public and private sectors. Doubtless the State could function quite well if one out of every five of these employees was sent packing. True, they will still be drawing unemployment insurance, provided by a tax on private businesses, but that insurance runs out in a short period of time. Their government salary and benefits don't.
The truly sad part for these people would come when trying to enter the private sector. How many of you in management (or even those of you who've handled personnel interviews) would give this person a second look for any job you're trying to fill?
I read PensionTsunami.com every day. And it's frustrating to note the way the media reports the subject.
On the one hand, local news outlets report on anecdotal outrages or looming city/state pension obligations. But when it comes to writing about the budget, they regurgitate the insiders' talking points about how gov't layoffs would hurt the economy. I seldom detect any skepticism on the reporter's part about the bloated cost of public sector workers. (Note: I refuse to call them public servants)
And national reporting is abysmal. They don't even seem aware of the threat posed by those huge pension/health care obligations. Why do they never ask why a gov't worker should retire at 55--or younger? Why do they not expose the fact that those sweet deals are negotiated by those who know how to game the system, the taxpayer has no seat at the table and is always the one getting screwed? Not to mention that they LIE to us about future costs.
The media shows such deference to gov't workers. Yet they're skeptical of anything they hear from private companies and workers (unless its a union, then the media just prints whatever they claim). It's sad and dangerous. Because it's killing our economy. The private sector cannot bear such a huge burden.
Any proof these letters to the SacBee are from real state workers and not trolls?
I'm trying to open a business in Los Angeles County.
If the state wants to cut its losses, start with the Business & Redevelopment agencies.
Friends in other states have told me how their local government agencies bent over backwards to help them get started. In LA County you get handed a stack of pages with URLS on them, most of them redundant. Of the listed URLS, most are for the Feds. The ones which permit you to sign up for free classes are either outdated or nonexistant.
Calling the listed phone # gets an answering machine and no return calls, no matter how or when you leave messages.
No one knows how to reach anyone with an answer, or even how to fill out the most basic forms.
But they do know where to get a good lunch, and how many weeks of vacation they get annually.
I'm a native Californian, though I have lived elsewhere for almost 30 years - and have disliked what's happened to that once vibrant and always beautiful state since the Junior Brown years.
The balance of power that made the creation of the California that worked possible was severely damaged when the Supreme Court did away with County level representation in the state senate, shifting control to Los Angeles and Southern California in the early 1960s.
Proposition 13 was a reaction to the increases in property taxes in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and a recognition that limiting property taxes alone was not enough to keep the legislature from merely shifting the tax burdent
What completely destroyed it was the decision to permit public employees at all levels - state employees, local government employees and teachers - to unionize.
There needs to be an equivalent of the 1910 Progressive Revolution -- when the reform Republicans took on the then dominant Southern Pacific Railroad (also the largest landholder in the state after the federal government at the time, and the source of much corruption) which owned the Democratic Party and much of the 'regular' Republican Party.
That's where we got the tools to protect the people from the legislature: initiative, referendum and recall. As much as the initiative process has allowed voters to pass things that were unfunded, it has also served to enable the voters to protect themselves against policies and taxation that the people reject.
What is needed is use of the initiative process to accomplish three goals:
1. Modify the initiative process to require authorization to raise funds needed to implement policy changes that increase benefits or services, or borrowing.
2. Eliminate all public employee unions - immediately where no contracts are in place, and at the expiration of the contracts where contracts are in force. Prohibit strikes by police, fire, prison and judicial personnel, on pain of immediate dismissal and a permanent bar to any public employment in the state.
3. Reduce state employee salaries by 20% across the board, with employees who are not willing to accept the reduction being laid off. Where employees are not under contract, this would take effect immediately; where contracts are in force, this takes effect at the end of the contract.
4. Get rid of the existing state pension system and replace it with something more fiscally realistic.
Without bloated public payrolls and pensions, and without providing services to illegal aliens and their anchor children, the state could almost certainly provide the relatively generous benefits and high quality education system that was in place under the last decent Democratic governor - my father's old friend from San Francisco and UC Berkeley, Pat Brown.
Silenttype, your parody summed up the State Worker nicely.
As attractive as returning to a 2004 budget may be, is is possible? What % of the state budget is mandated by entitlements. Does California law give a bankruptcy judge the flexibility to require renegotiation of state pensions and salaries?
What options are available under the law?
I worked for the Federal government for over 40 years in one form or another. What these individuals seem not to comprehend is that they work for the citizens who reside in their state. The same is true for the federal government. There is a truism here that when the citizens do well you do well. It is your responsibility to see that the citizen gets the best possible necessary service for the money and that they do well.
I am not sure how anyone with this kind of disrespect for the people who pay their salaries will convince those they malign that their service is of value to the taxpayer. Government is there to perform necessary functions for the citizens of their state and country, not the vice.
I took pride in ensuring that I did my level best to protect the citizen's interest because that interest was ultimately mine as well.
This is indeed a sad state of affairs when government employees forget who they work for and to who they owe their true allegiance. These people make me sick and are an embarrassment to those who came before them and the many times others put their careers on the line to protect the taxpayers interest.
I cannot tell you how much this bothers me.
Just remember that this is the model the Obamatards want for the whole country - 1 party gov't and total control. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that.
Dennis:
Well, bless your heart! You nailed it.
Public employees now think they're our masters. We weren't meant to have a privileged class in this country. But we now have one. They remind me of the feudal lords who conscripted whatever portion of the crop they needed to support their lifestyles.
It's not only maddening, it's frightening. We've given them so much power it's going to be nigh on impossible to rein them in.
Dennis,
Amen to what you said, brother!
I am fortunate that I did not run into many people with the attitudes represented in the quotes from the Sac Bee. Maybe it's a California thing, since I used to hear that kind of attitude from the Golden State workers more often than ours. (We weren't angels, but....still, that kind of arrogance is staggering.)
~ Former gov't worker from AZ
Please just remember that these people are facing the loss of their livelihoods and try to think of how you might respond in a similar situation. They don't appear rational because their lives are falling apart. "Promises" were made, however idiotic, that aren't being kept. Whatever "entitlement" issues these people are suffering, were caused by the legislature and the corrupt idiots in Sacramento. Now go back to flipping burgers and shut up.
I live in Sacramento and I can tell you this large class of workers feel entitled and they are pissed with a capital P! You hear them bitching and moaning wherever you go that their pay is getting cut, no hint of acknowledgment that people in the private sector are just laid off and they should be happy they have a job. They are also, I am sorry to say, the laziest workers. I've done business with the state of CA and basically, it's business with VOICEMAIL!
Paul notes,
Very first comment at the SacBee
"dutchgalncal wrote on 07/09/2009 06:29:37 AM:
Wow! 20% x's 2 for a married or cohabitating couple who both work for the State equals 40% of lost income..
No doubt 'dutchgalncal' is a product of those grate public school teachers.
Stick a fork in California, it's done.
As attractive as returning to a 2004 budget may be, is is possible? What % of the state budget is mandated by entitlements. Does California law give a bankruptcy judge the flexibility to require renegotiation of state pensions and salaries?
What options are available under the law?
There is a referendum process. We the people of California can vote down targeted legislation.
I have a suggestion based on the jump in state spending in 2006. It doesn't involve messing with the union system or pension plans, and it is gauranteed to deliver direct relief to every man woman and child in the state.
Repeal AB32 the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.
This will serve to remind Karen Bass Arnold Jerry Brown Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer who they work for, while also saving us a bundle in hidden and direct taxation.
I mean come on. Even Al Gore doesn't believe in it enough to say "Global Warming" any more.
Back in the 1800s cities had private fire companies. Multiple private fire companies. There'd be a fire and rival fire companies would show up, bid with the desperate homeowner for the job of fighting the fire, and even have fistfights between their members as the house burned down. This was depicted in "Gangs of New York" and yes, that sort of thing really happened. To the extent that the citizens abandoned private contractors for fire, police, and other services they considered "essential" to the public good.
The vast majority of civil servants, aka "public leeches", really are necessary to the functioning of society and provide necessary and useful work. They fight fires, patrol the streets, teach children, inspect construction work, fix street lights, sweep the streets, etc., etc., and receive modest wages and a reasonable pension when they retire after 30-35 years of service. I really don't think anyone wants to fire the prison guards or shut down the public beaches for lack of lifeguards. The real problem is higher up in the foodchain, the polticians who use their positions to buy votes with taxpayer money and raise taxes on businesses to fund pet projects like "stem cell research" that should be the province of private enterprise.
I have numerous relatives pulling in $100k (plus full medical) pensions from the CCPOA while simultaneously collecting $100k as "contractors". I have relatives who are husband and wife CCPOA members, now sucking a combined $400k per year of tax payer funds.
So much for "modest wages" and "reasonable pensions".
The SEIU is looking more and more like a mafia organization to me.
I, too, value essential services. I drove I-81 through Virginia on Tuesday and saw announcements along the way that 3 or 4 of their very nice rest stops will be closing latter this month. To me they've been essential, to the state taxpayers, who spend limited time daily on such a highway, probably not so much.
But enough kibitzing. Repeal of the Global Warming Solutions Act is a good start, but what else? And where do the state employees implementing the act end up?
Get rid of them all and start over. I love that bumpersticker that says, "If you can read this, thank a teacher." I thank my family who made sure I was literate before I reached first grade. Not that I didn't have good teachers; I did. The difference is that most of them were retired professionals or ex-military. You could spot the differnce between them and the Ed majors from a mile.
And where do the state employees implementing the act end up?
Think about where they come from. These new agencys, set up to indulge Al Gore's hobgoblin, are mostly used as semi retirement homes for termed out Democrats.
Let's concentrate on writing a ballot referendum to repeal AB32.
Is there special legaleze language that has to be included? A form that needs filling out? Petitions that need to be signed?
Let me give you four numbers.
1. total state budget: $104 Billion.
2. current deficit: $24 billion.
3. total employee payroll: $19 billion**
4. rank of California in number of state workers per hundred thousand population: 46th.
Conclusion: it's not state employees, it's too many programs and transfer programs with very loose qualification requirements.
includes pay covered by special funds, i.e., state gas tax pays for highway maintenance salaries, Federal gas tax pays for 90% of design highway engineers, others paid partially with federal funds.
Anonymous at 9:11, Does that $19B cover pension costs? Doesn't look like it, but it may be the wording. 46th in state worker/per unit of population. Got it.
Outlawing political contributions by public employee unions? That's not anywhere near enough, and besides, who's going to police the revolving door between the union positions and government posistions? Remember, that in California, union membership is MANDATORY for government employees. Want or not, the unions tap your salary. And you think that a law would stop them from buying politicians? They have become one with the power long ago, and half-measures just aren't going to work.
my bet is that they modify the law to allow tax increases to pass w/ 51% (yes, ignoring previous propositions)
and after that large tax increases are passed to balance the budget (at least on paper)
Most state workers have GEDs, according to what I've heard. Also, many are those who had no choice but the join the Army or Navy either because they couldn't get a job or were forced to by a judge. Then the government helps them to get a job later. Most private sector employees have much higher education, BAs and MAs for example.
Tax is a global issue. Nobody likes to pay it. No where in the world people like paying tax.
It can't work as a matter of fact, that is what I consider.
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