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Anthony Russell, 21, sits in the deserted Carousel shopping mall in San Bernardino, Calif., on Sept. 11.
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. -- When this sun-drenched exurb east of Los Angeles filed for bankruptcy protection in August, the city attorney suggested fraudulent accounting was the root of the problem.
The mayor blamed a dysfunctional city council and greedy police and fire unions. The unions blamed the mayor. Even now, there is little agreement on how the city got into this crisis or how it can extricate itself.
"It's total political chaos," said John Husing, a former San Bernardino resident and regional economist. "There is no solution. They'll never fix anything."
Yet on close examination, the city's decades-long journey from prosperous, middle-class community to bankrupt, crime-ridden, foreclosure-blighted basket case is straightforward — and alarmingly similar to the path traveled by many municipalities around America's largest state. San Bernardino succumbed to a vicious circle of self-interests among city workers, local politicians and state pension overseers.
Little by little, over many years, the salaries and retirement benefits of San Bernardino's city workers — and especially its police and firemen — grew richer and richer, even as the city lost its major employers and gradually got poorer and poorer.
Unions poured money into City Council elections, and the City Council poured money into union pay and pensions. The California Public Employees' Retirement System (Calpers), which manages pension plans for San Bernardino and many other cities, encouraged ever-sweeter benefits. Investment bankers sold clever bond deals to pay for them. Meanwhile, state law made it impossible to raise local property taxes and difficult to boost any other kind.
No single deal or decision involving benefits and wages over the years killed the city. But cumulatively, they built a pension-fueled financial time-bomb that finally exploded.
In bankrupt San Bernardino, a third of the city's 210,000 people live below the poverty line, making it the poorest city of its size in California. But a police lieutenant can retire in his 50s and take home $230,000 in one-time payouts on his last day, before settling in with a guaranteed $128,000-a-year pension. Forty-six retired city employees receive over $100,000 a year in pensions.
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Firefighter Captain Tim Smith, 41, puts on his boots to answer a call in San Bernardino, Calif.
Almost 75 percent of the city's general fund is now spent solely on the police and fire departments, according to a Reuters analysis of city bankruptcy documents -- most of that on wages and pension costs.
In the dark
San Bernardino's biggest creditor, by far, is Calpers, the public-employee pension fund. The city says it owes Calpers $143 million; using a different calculation, Calpers says the city would have to pay $320 million if it left the plan immediately.
Second on the city's list of creditors are holders of $46 million worth of pension bonds -- money borrowed in 2005 to pay off Calpers. The total pension-related debts are more than double the $92 million owed to the city's next 18 largest creditors combined.
Complicating matters were obscure budgeting procedures that left residents in the dark. The word "pension" doesn't appear once in the most recent 642-page budget, and retiree costs are buried in detailed departmental line items.
"I've been asking for years for the pension costs," said Tobin Brinker, a former council member and pension-reform advocate, who lost his seat last year to a challenger backed by nearly $100,000 in contributions from the fire and police unions. "I still don't know the number."
James Penman, the longtime city attorney who critics say is closely aligned with the unions, alleged during a council meeting this summer that 13 of the past 16 city budgets had been falsified. He has refused to elaborate on that accusation since, but told Reuters that he hasn't retracted it either.
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James Penman, attorney general of San Bernardino city, talks to the media at the City Council chambers on July 11.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an informal inquiry into the San Bernardino situation because of the city's bond obligations. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has provided funds to the city in the past, says it is conducting a routine periodic audit of the city's books that began before the bankruptcy.
No regulatory or law-enforcement agency has announced any criminal probe. Recently hired city finance officers do say they have found evidence of terrible accounting and record-keeping.
But unlike in the small Southern California cities of Bell, where eight city officials face trial on allegations that they stole from the public, and Vernon, where three officials have been convicted of corruption, San Bernardino's problems appear to be mainly the result of back-scratching on an epic scale.
It's a pattern common throughout the Golden State -- and while the particulars are quite different, it is akin to what happened in other states with severe financial crises, such as Illinois and Pennsylvania.
‘2.5 AT 55’
By the time San Bernardino's council met behind closed doors on Sept. 17, 2007, it was already clear the city was in trouble.
Just six months earlier, a report by consulting firm Management Partners showed that spending was outpacing revenue, pension costs were escalating and the city was quickly accumulating unfunded retirement liabilities.
Last decade's housing boom had papered over the deep economic problems stemming from the shutdowns of a huge steel mill in the 1980s and the Norton Air Force Base in the 1990s. Now the boom was over. Tax revenues were poised for a big fall: Between 2007 and 2011, they dropped 30 percent, according to Husing, the regional economist.
Yet on this day in 2007, the city was about to raise pension benefits again, in a deal allowing non-public-safety workers to retire at 55 with a pension equal to three-quarters of their salary. Called "2.5 at 55," it calculated annual pensions at 2.5 percentage points of final salary for each year worked -- 75 percent for 30 years.
It wasn't nearly as good a deal as the one police and firefighters enjoyed - a "3 percent at 50" plan passed a year earlier. That enabled the public-safety workers to retire at 50 with a pension of up to 90 percent of their final salary. Regardless, "2.5 at 55" was what union negotiators had asked for, and the council was poised to rubber-stamp it.
But then something happened. And in a city which has a particularly toxic brand of politics, what transpired depends on who you talk to.
According to four people present at the meeting, Penman, the city attorney, brought a pregnant co-worker to the session. By their account, Penman's co-worker made an emotional case for an even more generous pension deal. Otherwise, she said, she would be forced to leave San Bernardino and seek work in a city with better benefits. She had her family to consider, she said.
Penman vehemently denies that any of this took place. "Welcome to San Bernardino politics," he said.
Runaway train
That afternoon, in public session, the council unanimously voted to award its non-safety workers 2.7 percent at 55 - more even than the union sought. That tiny fraction could raise the pension on a $100,000 salary by $6,000 per year. Penman, in office since 1987, earned $164,799 last year, according to city payroll data.
"In hindsight I am not proud of this vote," said Brinker, who was on the City Council at the time. "The recession hit barely a year later. This was one more log on the pension bonfire."
Meanwhile, San Bernardino continued to boost wages along with benefits. The average salary for a full-time San Bernardino firefighter in 1997 was $75,610, adjusted for inflation into 2010 dollars. By 2010, it was nearly $147,000, according to a Reuters analysis of Census Bureau data.
City wages were a runaway train, according to the Management Partners report. The city charter automatically calculated police and firefighter pay using a formula linked to wages offered by comparably sized cities -- most of which were much wealthier than San Bernardino. Efforts to amend the charter were strongly opposed by the safety unions and voted down by the council earlier this year.
City workers took advantage of compensation rules, common among public employees in California, that made retirement deals even better. Key to this was boosting an employee's eve-of-retirement wages, which form the basis of the pension calculations.
Mike Conrad, chief of the fire department from 2006 to 2012, said he saw managers negotiate a promotion in their final year, to boost their final salary. It was not uncommon for someone to move into a position with a $30,000 annual pay rise shortly before retirement, he said.
Retiring employees are also able to extract big one-time "cash outs." In San Bernardino, eight hours per month of unused sick time can be rolled over and saved year after year, without limit. Come retirement, 50 percent of the total can be taken in cash. The same goes for unused vacation time: up to 460 accrued hours of vacation -- nearly three months of salary -- can be cashed in at the fire department, Conrad said.
The police have a similar deal. In 2009, patrol Lt. Richard Taack retired at the age of 59, after 37 years of service. He took home $389,727 that year, including $194,820 in unused sick time and $33,721 for unused vacation time, according to city payroll records. Shortly after Taack retired -- on an annual lifetime pension of $128,000 -- he was hired part-time by Penman's city attorney's office, at $32 an hour.
Potholes and empty lots
Taack's 2009 income was nearly double that of the city's entire street-sweeping department. In 2011, overtime pay alone for the police department -- $2,766,175 -- exceeded the total payroll of 12 other San Bernardino city departments, according to the Reuters analysis of payroll data. Taack didn't respond to requests for comment.
"I can't begrudge the man for receiving what he's entitled to under the contract," said David Green, the head road sweeper, who has seen his department cut to five people from 13 when he joined in 1995. But he said there should be a better balance between the safety forces and other departments. "Nobody wants to drive a car and have to hit a three-foot pothole."
Indeed, potholes scar downtown San Bernardino. Many stores are shuttered. Abandoned lots sit unkempt. Since the bankruptcy filing, city finance officials have put forward proposals to close libraries, senior centers and a cemetery.
Andrea Travis-Miller, interim city manager, told the council this summer that 250 non-safety positions had been eliminated in the past three years to save money -- and implied that police and fire benefits were crowding out other essential services. "I believe that city buildings, roads, trees and parks that have begun to show neglect would deteriorate further if more cuts are made," Travis-Miller said.
The police and fire unions fiercely dispute the charge that large salaries and pensions are to blame for the predicament. They point to the housing crash, which left the city with the fourth-worst foreclosure rate in the country.
Scott Moss, head of the firefighters union, said 20 positions had already been cut from the Fire Department, leaving about 120 people.
"There's been mismanagement for years," Moss said, over coffee in a local restaurant. He noted that Mayor Patrick Morris had majority support on the City Council for six years until union-backed members regained a majority in March. "The mayor and his people are trying to make us look bad."
Moss, 46, a fire paramedic, said he might retire at 53. Payroll records show a base pay of $94,500, and total 2011 wages, with overtime, of about $147,000. Moss confirmed the base figure but didn't comment on the overtime number.
Sick of the blame
Moss said he is sick of people blaming pensions. "You go to bankruptcy, you got to blame somebody. So they say it's the benefits, it's the overtime -- it's everybody but them," Moss said. "But what have they been doing these last six years?"
On sick-pay cash-outs, Moss said: "If you call in sick, you're a bad employee. So my guys don't call in sick. Then you get all this time you are owed -- and you get vilified."
He added: "This is a dangerous city. It's an old, decayed city. It burns. There are gangs. The pay and benefits attract the police and firefighters it needs. Without them, you lose all the good ones. That's the balance."
Crime and gangs are real dangers in San Bernardino. In 2010, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation data, the rate of known violent crimes -- 8.15 per 1,000 people -- was higher than in any other city in the region.
A five-minute drive from City Hall, on a residential street, sit flowers and homemade signs next to a picture of Angel Cortez. The 22-year-old was shot in the back of the head in May in what police suspect was a "gang-related" murder. His body was found in the backyard of a vacant home. His killers had first tried stuffing his body into a trash can, then returned to dig a hole, before unsuccessfully attempting to burn his body, police said.
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Mayor Patrick J. Morris poses for a photo in San Bernardino, Calif., in July 2012.
Mayor Morris, a 74-year-old former judge who's been in office six years, is scathing about the power he says the unions have over much of the city council. The unions, he said, "wag the dog." (Council members are paid just $50 a month for their service, but also receive a car allowance worth $600 a month).
He rejects Moss's argument that he should take responsibility for the financial crisis. He is particularly critical of his two-time challenger for the mayorship, city attorney Penman, who he said "has blocked all efforts to reform the budget" on behalf of the unions.
Morris added: "I have no vote on the council. I can only veto a vote if it is 4 to 3. All I have is the power of persuasion. I've told them a bunch of times to be far more conservative, not to be so generous with our unions, and it's advice they have largely ignored."
'Mean, divisive, corrosive'
Morris isn't running for re-election when his term expires a year from now. "The politics of this place are and have been for decades mean-spirited, divisive, and it's corrosive to the extreme," he said.
Penman denies being influenced by the unions. He said he takes campaign contributions from the police and firefighters like most other elected officials in California. He said he actually split with the police union in 2007 -- a rupture reported at the time -- and wasn't endorsed by them again until his last re-election bid in 2011. Campaign finance records show that he received $30,000 in contributions from the police and fire unions in 2011.
Of his critics, Penman said: "You are hearing from some people whose ethics and honesty are very much in doubt."
A key facilitator of San Bernardino's generous retirement packages was Calpers, which manages pensions both for state workers and for many city and county employees across California.
Led by a board of directors who are all themselves members of the pension plan, Calpers has for decades pushed to sweeten benefits for retirees.
A 1999 law championed by Calpers, known as SB 400, cut the retirement age five years and increased benefits for state workers, all on the premise that a rising stock market meant benefits could be juiced up at little or no cost. Many cities and counties, though not required to go along, were happy to heed Calpers' analysis. About half -- including San Bernardino — adopted the richer benefit formula.
When the stock market tumbled in 2000, cities and towns suddenly had to ramp up payments to Calpers to make up for the hit to their fund balances, which were heavily invested in shares. Fee-hungry investment bankers stepped into the breach.
Led by the now-defunct Lehman Brothers, they persuaded many cities -- including San Bernardino and Stockton, which is also in bankruptcy -- that the best way to satisfy growing obligations to Calpers was to borrow the money via so-called pension obligation bonds. San Bernardino raised $50 million in 2005 by issuing these notes. Between 1999 and 2009, 26 California cities sold about $1.7 billion of debt to fund their pensions, including bond issues that were used to pay off earlier debt.
'Calpers versus Wall Street’
Yet even in bankruptcy, reducing pension costs by cutting benefits is not an option - at least according to Calpers.
The pension agency says the benefits are carved in stone, arguing that from the day a worker is hired, the pension plan in place on that day for that person can never be reduced in value under any circumstances, including municipal bankruptcy.
That argument has never been tested in court: When the Bay Area city of Vallejo went bankrupt in 2008, it declined to challenge the pension payments to Calpers, in part because of the daunting legal costs involved.
But the pension-bond insurers who are now on the hook for defaulted bonds in both Stockton and San Bernardino have signaled their intention to do battle with Calpers in bankruptcy court. San Bernardino, in an unprecedented move, has already stopped making payments to Calpers.
"Calpers is the 800-pound gorilla in the room," said Michael Sweet, a bankruptcy attorney at Fox Rothschild, which is not representing any parties in the San Bernardino bankruptcy. "No one has yet taken on Calpers. This is going to be a huge fight, and it's going to be Calpers versus Wall Street."
Calpers says it wasn't responsible for the decisions made in San Bernardino. Alan Milligan, chief actuary at Calpers, said the 1999 legislation "provided options to cities and agencies to change their retirement benefits, but it did not encourage or force them" to do so. "Calpers does not give advice about how an agency should pay for their retirement benefits."
Brad Pacheco, a spokesman for Calpers, said San Bernardino lost major employers in recent years and was one of the U.S. cities hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis. He said San Bernardino's annual pension costs account for just 10 percent of the total city budget.
Those figures, however, exclude the city's $46 million in pension-bond debt plus its unfunded debt to Calpers. The city in its bankruptcy filing says it is $143 million in the hole to Calpers. Calpers says that if San Bernardino pulled out of the plan, it would owe $320 million to cover its current and future obligations.
Miserable company
San Bernardino and Stockton are hardly alone. A handful of other small California cities, including Atwater, Hercules and Compton, are teetering near bankruptcy.
Big California cities that run their own pension plans also have deep problems. San Jose, hub of Silicon Valley, and San Diego, biotech center of California, both passed pension reforms in June in the face of unmanageable retirement benefits. they are now defending those measures in court against public-employee lawsuits.
In Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a former labor organizer, led a push to raise the retirement age and cut pensions for new, non-safety city staff. He exempted police and fire employees. A ballot measure sponsored by former Mayor Richard Riordan aims to include them in the cuts, too.
And while California has the biggest pension debt in the United States in dollar terms, it's not the worst off. Illinois and Kentucky plans are battling for the dubious distinction of having the lowest ratio of assets to liabilities, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
The chronic mismanagement in San Bernardino, though, is a common feature of local government in California and around the United States. Much power over municipal finance lies in the hands of those with the most at stake — city employees, elected officials and others who depend directly on government for their livelihood. And California is moving to put even more responsibility and funds, not less, in their hands.
One of Gov. Jerry Brown's marquee initiatives is "realignment," an effort to move more public-safety, welfare and prison services from state control to the cities and counties. Local governments are more flexible and more responsive to local issues, Brown argues, and thus able to make better decisions.
Charles McNeely, who served three years as San Bernardino's city manager after 13 years in the same post in Reno, Nev., quit last March, citing the "toxic" atmosphere on the council. He had warned repeatedly that without change, the city faced ruin. In a presentation to the City Council in August 2010, he said spending was far outpacing revenue and predicted a budget deficit of $40 million for this fiscal year.
"I don't know how you could come out of that meeting not understanding we had a serious problem," McNeely said in an interview. "I told them, 'You're headed for trouble, it's a train wreck. You can't keep doing business this way.'"
Additional reporting by Peter Henderson and Jim Christie in San Francisco.
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One thing not mentioned in this article is the fact that pension fund rules were changed when Bush2 came into office. Prior to that, pension funds were allowed surpluses without limit so if 'bad times' came they could cover shortfalls easily. But the rules were changed, and many funds were faced with having 'too much' money and limited means to deal with it. Most sweetened benefits to get rid of the 'excess' money (rather than losing it to the feds which is where it would go if not paid out in benefits) but when the stock market dived, they no longer had the surpluses to cover the shortfall. Also not helping was new requirements for minimums, in effect narrowing the 'range' the pension funds had to manuever in. A very subtle (and effective) attack on mostly union pensions who up until the new rules were generally doing a very good job of managing their investments and paying benefits. Note that this just wasn't public employee pensions that were affected, but pretty much all 'defined benefit' pensions, even those in the private sector. Chalk up another one for the GOP...
and you are as stupid as a box of rocks, In the 90s in the private sector accounting was changed and defined pensions had to be shown on your balance sheet as a liability and private business got rid of them immeadiately. Defined pension plans are unsustainable. I dislike the public union scum every bit as much as the Koch brothers. The Democrats will be committing suicide if they tie their wagon to the public employee unions. It is like the Republicans hooking up with the tea party. Toxic I voted for Obama and I have voted twice now for Walker. Obama won WI but the republicans won back the Senate, after all fo the recalls etc. it is right back where it started. What part is not understood, WE DON'T HAVE THE MONEY
Dan, get your facts straight. Yes, the accounting rules were changed but if enough money was paid into the funds, no problem. Many funds had plenty of money, but were forced to spend it down under the Bush2 rules. The ones that had issues with the accounting change weren't putting enough in (and many were in fact robbing their funds such as Kodak and Enron).
Don't get the idea I'm making excuses for the public employee unions, because I'm not. There's obviously been some excesses in places, and the reckoning has come. But a big chunk of the unfunded liability problem of these plans are due to the changed rules and the very limited options the fund managers had to deal with them.
Another thing they dont mention here is the fact that so many illegals sucked up the majority of the budget.
Here is what Mexicans feel about being here illegally and if they are even legal. I here this from 100% of Mexicans I've known. And they all say with a festivous hurray, White people are going down, It's our turn to take over! Personaly, All I've known are chicanos and mexicans for 30+ years, I'm telling the truth.
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I come Texas from Mexico in 1987 so call illegal way but Texas was Mexico until USA stoel it during War of Aggression 1846. I consider myself a Mexican
We did not steel it from you pendejo. That obsurd excuse for you Mexicans to feel justified to steel white and black mans vote. You have no ties to our great nation, you and poncho vila. We conqured it by defeating your pathetic corupt leaders and army with guns and knives. And it was North American indians land not yours. when you kick out Spain, Spains territory was up for grabs and we grabed it with our white blood. Your stealing America by sneaking and crawling under our fence to steel our jobs. We did not steel, we fight, we conqure with our white blood. You sneak under our fences.
The south west USA was north american indans land. Apaches, Navajo, Gila, Pima indians. You dont belong here. They kept kicking your butts back down south to Mexico every time you murdered and raped their villages to to conquere them. Whites conquered indians with their white blood.
Spell check can't help you. Pitiful post.
crazy steve- "chalk this one up to the GOP"
LAMO thats good one. i doubt very seriously that one single member of that city council , firefighters/ police union, was a republican.
the GOP could dissapear completely tomorrow, after a few years when it becomes painfully obvious that the fiscal policies of liberals were the root cause of the problems they would still blame the GOP for thier failures.
Just like the Long Island Railroad union mechanic that made a base pay of $55K per year. He worked an incredible ammount of overtime and vacation buy back which brought his annaul salary to over$200K. He actually made more than the NYS comptroller! His pension will be based on that $200K if he was near retirement! A Yonkers police officer did the same thing! Base pay $35K- Pension $105K! See what's happening here folks? Municiple unions are destroying this country and San Bernardino is a prime example of it!
@billy234, Pendejo, Gringo. Yeh, I know what Gringo means and I know it goes both ways. First of all the Spaniards invaded Mexico and on up and East to the Atlaantic, you rememder Pizzaro and the Fountain of Youth Hunt. It may have been fabricated but it got him funds to go exploring. than all the way to the Pacific Coast. If you follow "The Mission Trail" it goes from one Spanish Mission to another. Each one is a mark in time for the Spanish Explorisers, not the Mexican. So who took what from the Native Tribes First. By the way if you do your History you will find out after we defeated Mexico for this land and that we paid them for it later. We also purchased the South Eastern part of this country from the Spainards.
Wow. Police get over 100k a year in retirement??? That's BS.
IT's not just a few cities, and it's not just in California. IT is everywhere. The entitlement mentality is all over gubmint, local, state and Federal. These Generals we see in the news for the last week going back a few years, dozens of them, fired, demoted or discreditied for taking things, overreaching, being disrespectful. Socially engineered hiring preferences abound in gubmint - translation, people getting jobs they aren't really qualified for. The politissiuns view gubmint jobs as a welfare program. Look at personnel actions in gubmint involving discipline, the HR depts are there to harrass and punish supervisers for trying to manage their staff. Any boss that takes the job too seriously will find themselves the object of an HR review. HR's are there to facilitate corruption and slack performance among staff to create an empire for themselves to rule over. Look at all the emergency management departments : we had a hurricane 25 years ago, a small flood about every 2 years and a big one about every ten to fifteen years. So we have a city emergency management staff, a county one, both major universities nearby have one (pd by the state), the State has one. Our taxpayers are funding hundreds of emergency management staff (these are not first responders, or the national guard) to sit around and worry about what to do if a storm comes or a Va Tech type shooter cuts loose. Every university and college in the coutnry has a Va Tech response team of paid people ready and funded for attacks that will not happen in their careers. And after sitting in an emrgency mgtmt office for 25 years working on 6 events, they retire at 54 and expect a rewtirement check and medical care for the next 35 years. They are nice people and if you get to know them you will like them, but the burden of paying for them is incredible. The psychology of being in an agency where the real activity is low trains these folks that money does grow on trees. Next they arrange San Bernidino type packages for themselves, because after all, you hired them in the first place into jobs that didn't make sense. There is just too much gubmint. And the people in it are too far detached form reality of the private sector , yet they have authority over the private sector and want to rule with an iron hand. And when they break a gubmint like San Bernadino, their response is to go to the people who have been paying the bills and take away more from them.
Sorry if the facts get in the way of your image. Many of the people you mother told you to trust have been robbing you blind. A very difficult thing to deal with, a very inconvenient truth.
The republicans argue people deserve the money they earn, inherit or make from investments and should pay less tax on it unless they are unionized. It's ok to pay a CEO of a failed corporation 25 million to resign but it isn't ok to pay union public service workers a high salary and pension. In a lot of cases the taxpayer ends up paying both. There certainly is abuse in both cases. My position is pay the money and tax them at a high rate. Make 150 K pay the tax, make 200 M a year pay a heavier tax. Tax is the great equalizer. It is ridiculous to continue the Bush II policy of big government and in this case smaller government to borrow money to pay the bill when all bills should be paid for out of the tax base. If you don't have the money don't spend it!
Dan-101...., you are one of the people I was curious about, voting for Walker and Obama. I voted for Walker and Romney. What I was wondering about, if the Walker reforms work as well as early indications point, would you support Walker for President somewhere in down the road, 2016, 2020??
A sad commentary on selfishness, greed and corruption. Destruction of a city and the people living there. Politicians who pander not to their constituents but to those funding their campaigns, Business with no regard to local economies, city workers blinded by greed and a banking system that feeds it until it's dead. Sound familiar? It should it's coming to a country near you!
The operative word in your idiotic statement, EARN.
Maybe we should ask the greedy union idiots at hostess how that strike went. Selfish morons.
The unions & the DNC have an unholy alliance that breeds corruption.
America is in a post-Constitutional era and has begun to look like a piss-poor imitation of socialist Europe.
Interesting, Unions are overwhelmingly democratic leaning, just check with the Obama administration. Yet in this entire article not one mention was made of the political party of these crooks and yet the first poster blamed it all on Bush.
The utter inability of democrats to own anything bad done by people in their party is embarrassing and a travesty. Here's the mantra, all democrats good, all republicans bad, everything is Bush's fault. We have a word for this in the English language, its call delusional.
Jeez, would these be the same unions who dumped $60,000,000 into the Ca. election "No on 32" proposition that would have gotten union and corporation money out of politics? Ya think? Their name should be changed from "public unions" to "public thieves."
I think we can agree that the main purpose of unions in 2012 is to ensure the continuation of unions. 100 years ago they protected workers against abuses and sought standards of benefits for members. Just look to the 2 tiered system rolled out during the auto bailout. Keep what we have, let the next group fight for it.
As for whether or not it was Clinton or Bush to blame, the issues started with the Community Re-investment Act telling banks to sign up more "creative" mortgages. In 1995 the Commodity Futures Modernization Act removed regulatory oversight into Credit Default Swaps. This is the start of the ball rolling. Then when in 2003 the housing bubble burst, everyone was scrambling to cover the increasingly bad debt incurred by "signing the pizza delivery guy up for a mortgage covering the purchase of a $700,000 home [common example used].
Add in increased military spending, reduced tax revenue from job losses, and needing to bailout industries that forecast income based on product purchases; and you can see that this started long ago. Bush tax cuts aren't the sole blame, spending money no one had is at fault.
Yeah, let's apply the conservative fiscal fix. Tax cuts for the wealthy should turn this city around in no time.
Dick-2100935
A progressive income tax is one of the platforms of the Communist Manifesto, so in that sense, yes it is the great equalizer.
I do agree that taxpayers end up paying both for public employees pensions and failed CEO's severances however. It's unfortunate.
California's problems can for the most part be traced to their idiotic property tax laws. People in million dollar homes paying under a thousand dollars a year, it ridiculous.
The issues, like all of the tax woes in the nation, raise taxes, we keep lowering them and wondering why the government can't meet their obligations. And when the polls get involved, all they ever do is cut, cut, cut, but the cuts never amount to anything more than political grandstanding. And the right has made tax increases the boogie man, so no politicians will touch it.
California, start taxing real property like everyone else and your budget woes will magically disappear, or at the very least make them manageable.
@ Scott- Somewhat true. But it's not quite what you think. Prop 13 came to be because CA government was going nuts with property taxes. You couldn't swing a dead carp without hitting some politician proposing a new tax increase on property. Residents were buying houses they could afford well enough only to find that in a few years they were being taxed to death and could no longer afford to keep the home they owned. CA voters decided to stop those politicians in their tracks. However one of the side effects of prop 13 was to drive up the price of housing so with the higher value of the homes, the government hasn't lost out as much as you think.
Once again, we see that greed is destroying America. It happens on both sides . . . greed from the unions, and greed from the top 10% and CEOs.
The problem is that everyone jumps to the extreme and wants to take extreme action. Obviously there is a pension problem, so the immediate reaction from the right is to get rid of all unions. In response, the left argues to keep all unions "as is". The solution is in the center: re-work the pension plans and make them sustainable, without completely removing the unions that protect people from the greed of those in charge.
I am not fully convinced that we still need unions. At the same time, I am not fully convinced that those in charge will do the right thing, when it comes to their workers. So once again, the answer lies in compromise . . . on both sides.
This is exactly what is happening to our country on a national level, only it's lobbyist and special interest groups that are controlling Congress. Members of Congress don't vote for whatever is good for the nation. They vote for whatever is good for their personal pockets and reputations among their constituents. For example, multimillion dollar bridges to nowhere, etc.
I was a nurse for over forty years. The last six years was, as a RN Case Manager for a hospice. I visited patients in their homes. I loved the autonomous nursing and was able to use my skills to comfort the patients and their loved ones. I have been a widow for several years, so the 403b recommended by my employer, was what I was led to believe a good opportunity to save for my retirement. For six years I put money into the account but then my "salary" flat lined, no more bonuses were given out, ($200.00/year) and then we had to pay $2,500/year, for medical expenses before our insurance kicked in. WWI have always paid at least 50% of the medical insurance.
Needless to say, my savings dwindled and I lost tens of thousands of dollars, from my 403b. The price of gas went up and the amount we were reimbursed stayed the same. When I was able to retire, I had very little in my savings and I felt like I was paying, to work for the hospice. All of this occurred during the Bush years. I have no doubt, I have him and his rich, old, white, elitist biddies, to thank for changing the rules and also, lack of concern for hard working Americans like me.
This election was about the middle class and the unfair treatment of workers. I never belonged to a union but I wish I would have been able too. I know the article mentions the unions suffered too but, I would live a lot better on $100,000/year than $26,000/year!
I am so grateful President Obama has been re-elected, not that it will do me any good. I do see a more balanced and fairer chance for my children. Quite frankly, the middle class was robbed. My only consolation is, the rich old farts, cannot take iot with them!
Hey Steve, still blaming Bush for everything I see. Why don't you just open your eyes and admit that the greedy, corrupt unions and the city management dug this hole? If it was Bushes fault, don't you think every city or municipality in the the U.S. that has unions would be be in the same boat as this city? Use your brain, Bush didn't cause them to be greedy little money whores, they did it to themselves.
I believe an important thing to understand is the difference between Concepts and Reality. Unions are a noble concept. If you pair their function down to essentials, such as being negotiators, and not hand over the comapny store to them, the concept will work. However, if we hand them the function of dealing with our money, whether in retirement accounts or as campaign funders, etc., they then have far more control to mess with employers who do not want to constantly have to deal with idots that always seem to get on top of unions. Retirement funds can be handled individually or in small groups designed simply to act in that one capacity, retirement funding and not a weight on employers because of excess power in a Union.
Something else not exactly part of this discussion conceptually, but is a drag on employers, is their forced involment with health insurance for their workers which puts far more work and expense on them than they want. It would have been wiser for all who employ people to back Medicare for all, which already has a business plan that works, (the corruption aside) instead of the Affordable Care Act which is unecessary except to have at all insurance companies happy and still in the game. Why should we care if they are happy or not. There are other businesses to be in.
Improvements on our lifestyle need not be just stuff like infrastructure that gives us paved roads but it can go beyond that into other sorts of services that make life in general better.
As a concept, I think we might think in terms of less billionaires and more millionaires. Spreading the wealth need not be a hardship on the rich. When one has enough to make lazy fools out of his great, great, great, great grand children, while some cannot even carry their one lifetime it is time to see what's wrong with that concept.
The bottom line, as I see the problem with getting along, is that we tend, in all things that need reevaluation, to go to the same point of departure thinking that from there we will have a different, better outcome. Rethinking requires that we start fresh on new ground we come to from the creativity we are capable of.
War Ranger
Here in Ohio, many cities are on the brink of bankruptcy. And I don't place all the blame on Bush, I think Reagan got the ball rolling, after he broke the air traffic controllers union! Let's face it, the rich fat cats, like the Kochs and Murdocks have influence over the "little people" and without unions. they would crush us all!
ILLEGAL immigration is a cause of a substantial portion of California's massive debt!
AngelicaS,
BINGO !!!!!!!
Who protects us from the union thievery Judy?? Thats what this article is all about.
The UNITED States is a union! And if it were not for unions, we would be like the people of China! "Thievery is pretty common in every walk of life. Just go shopping. Everything one buys is, so marked up, even when you get something for 99% off, the seller is still making a profit.
I am sticking with the UNION called the United States. And even though I have never worked for a unionized hospital, I Know, I would have had a better quality of life. My husband died at the age of 44. He worked for a railroad, for 17 years. If it had not been for his union, I would have never been able to retire. Mind you, I was a nurse for over forty years. His retirement benefit was three times what mind was! If you read my first post, you will see, nursing was not lucrative when I started. I made $1.25/hr the first year after I graduated. That was in 1964! My mom made three times that much, working as a cashier in a unionized grocery store. I am no idiot, I realize the down side of unions but I still think they represent, the will of their workers.
The dumbest thing the Democrats can do is to tie their wagon to the public employees, teachers unions etc. Their is a backlash coming. I voted for Obama here in WI but I also voted for Walker the first time and against his recall. The Republicans won back the Senate here. In Milwaukee the board that negotiates with the the technical college voted to have quick negotiations with the local tech college because the law is held up in the courts. A woman who teaches manicure makes 105K PLUS benifits for 9 months. Public employee unions are every bit as greedy and unethical as the Koch brothers
Greed comes in many forms and is found everywhere.Whether in unions, city council meetings or in a person taking advantage of their fellowman to get ahead. Feelings of entitlement can creep in as well.Who doesn't want to have that guaranteed golden egg against fears of an uncertain future ahead.
Rarer are people who have integrity,real character that will not be corrupted or give in to temptations to get ahead at the expense of another. Especially when that other will remain unknown.Ultimately though, it will catch up with you.
I believe there is a saying," The love of money is the root of all evil." But I would add, "But greed is it its seed."
Wow, George Busch can be blamed for everything, FOREVER!!!! That's just waaaay too funny. Took me a while to quit laughing on that one. Keep it up. At least our nation's bankrupcy will be entertaining...........
I'm a moderate turned lefty (I've split my presidential votes since 1980 Dem:Rep 5:4) by the deluge of corporate greed and intolerance that has become the Republican party. And I have some good friends who are teachers, cops and firefighters. That said... union zealots are every bit as toxic to this country as Wall Street bankers. It's one thing for easily replaceable low level workers to fight to preserve humane, safe, fair working conditions. It's quite another for unions full of workers, people who have not sacrificed and striven to improve themselves through education demanding pay and retirement benefits far outstripping their educated counterparts who have invested a great deal of their own money and at the same time foregone years of earning potential to better themselves. For that reason, I applaud Gov. Scott's reform efforts in Wisconsin. Someone who fixes potholes for 30 years should not reap the same retirement as someone who takes risks, makes decisions, creates a dramatic impact on a community and provides services that relatively few people can.
Another point I think needs to be made is transparency. On all levels of government, people should know how the money flows. Who contributes to campaigns. Who makes financial decisions. Who is making what kind of money as a result. If a private business promises outrageous pensions to its workers, and winds up in financial trouble, it can't simply charge its customers 20% more for the same service. It simply folds. If a city, county, state, even the Federal government winds up in financial trouble, on the other hand, they stay in business by simply raising taxes... and the pensions just flow.
So people need to know. The information needs to be right there in front of them. Money in. Money out. Who influences. Who benefits. And how much. Knowledge is power. And taxpayers need to have power over their taxes.
California deserves what it is and others will be receiving...
This is not the ONLY un/underfunded mandates the CA POLITICIANS have shoved down the VOTERS throat...
Remember - Pelosi - The just vote for it and read it later was an accepted practice...
Indeed.
I'm a CA resident and I think its absurd that Prop 32 failed.
It's amazing how little requirement there is to stay truthful in political speech and just the massive number of morons that vote entirely based on which ad they see more frequently on TV (which is my #1 concern about the SCOTUS decision on Citizens United is just how easily swayed and ill informed most voters are and choose to be)
The "Yes on 30/No on 32"-campaign was just pouring money from all sources into killing this bill and getting yet another tax passed.
CA is in the hole and chasing out business left and right and the public service unions own the state
Now we have a Democrat super-majority in our state government...we're totally screwed...the entire legislature is criminally corrupt and largely untouchable now.
...lovely
What's doubly unnerving for me is how stupidly the GOP handles itself in CA. They could win with landslides in a number of districts and take the senate seats (at least Boxer's) if they would stop putting their support behind the social conservative nutjobs. Romney would make a fine CA governor or senator if he ran as he did in MA
You could move to Alabama.
The average person can't successfully monitor each of their elected officials (city, county, state, federal) and the people we elect really aren't smarter than the rest of us but some of them are more conniving and once they aren't stopped they begin to believe their actions are okay. It's a character flaw common to many people.
and Obama is one of those flawed people, and 51% of Americans are too lazy, stupid, and welfare fed to care or to see it.
Thomas Jefferson: A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%
Dennis- Do you fact check? No, you obviously don't. Jefferson never said that. That "quote" was made up and first appeared on the internet in 2004. My source is the Monticello website. It would be nice if people would not post pure bull@!$%# on these discussion boards.
I used to vote Republican. Until people like sAyItLiKeItIs converted me to a liberal. @$$holes like you who pigeonhole everyone who votes for a different party as absolute scum are 100% responsible for losing my vote. I guarantee I'm smarter than you, have worked harder than you, have contributed more to society than you and am generally more principled than you. And people like you make me vote Democrat.
This is the story of every city in California. I truly hate what this state has become. The quality of living and financial solvency of this state is in the TOILET!
Why don't you leave?
The old and tired : "you don't like it then leave" argument.
Never try to improve something, it might get better, just leave...
Don't critic, point flaw, highlight problems, peoples might take notice and do something about those problems, just leave...
Signs of an ignorant person:
Don't like America? Leave.
Don't agree with American government policy? Leave.
Don't like the leadership in DC? Leave.
I feel the same way Jeff and I did leave Michael. When it became obvious that California's course was set on autopilot and the key was broken off, it just didn't seem prudent to stick around for the crash and explosion.
Gneisenau- Good for you. I wish more like you would leave. That would definitely improve the state. please don't come back. By the way, I didn't see any suggestions of things to do to improve the state on this thread, only bitching and bellyaching. California is a great place to live. You spoiled rotten whiners don't know how good you have it. You have never traveled anywhere else, in all likelihood. I have been to third world countries, and I know how good I have it here. So please, all of you, go somewhere else. I have someplace that I will tell you to go.
I grew up in California, and yes it has become a totally different environment than it once was. All of the people on both sides of these issues have things to say that are true. The one thing that continues to come to mind is the root cause of just about all of the problems we face today, and that is the fact that the entire world is over-populated. And everyone that isn't living off the land in an undeveloped area is privy to what everyone else in the world owns and can afford to do, and they want it too. One of the most important books is "The Population Bomb" by Paul Erlich. Funny though, it was written way back in '68, now you seldom hear anything about this subject, when it is at the root of most of our problems, political and financial. The one country that has done something about it? China. I don't understand why our system gives people tax breaks and assistance for having children, instead of incentives not to have more than 2. In fact, why not give the tax breaks for adopting a child which wouldn't add to the population problem?
Aw Michael, don't be like that. If you want to live in a bankrupt state that has pushed out so much of it's tax base and is now wondering where the next tax dollar is going to come from, then don't let me stop you. I just couldn't afford to stay any longer. I couldn't see any reason to stay in a state that didn't want me but just my money. I went somewhere where the actually seem to be glad I came and don't try to pick my pockets for every dime I have.
I'm quote happy you don't need me to live in that state. In fact I think I'll go out and celebrate tonight. I'm sure you'll get your wish and more people like me will leave CA. In fact we are leaving at a pretty rapid rate. I think it won't be long before you find you're disappointed with what stayed behind. Besides I find it funny you think we whine for wanting to keep what we worked so hard for and don't consider yourself a whiner for wanting more of what's not yours.
@ twodogsloving
I used to listen to the Tom Leykis Show when he was still on the air.
He had a great suggestion:
Instead of a child tax credit. Reverse the entire notion and treat the thing as part of a larger, standard deduction that everyone gets. The tradeoff however is that this deduction is reduced by a full 50% with each new dependent minor. Then, the interesting part, if one has a 3rd child (or more), they actually pay a small penalty (incrementally) that goes towards funding the very things that their child will cost for the state until they become productive citizens (things like public schools, roads, services/utilities, etc.).
Lastly, to avoid the pitfall of everyone with many kids choosing to file separately vs. jointly, the credit for reduced completely with 1 child vs 2.
China's 1-child policy is terrible and is resulting in their country reaching a serious impasse of elderly outnumbering the young by a large amount. Add to that the issue of the Chinese engaging in selective abortions which has resulted in significantly more boys than girls. These two factors are going to lead to a massive population bust that will only be eclipsed by the likes of India and their rampant infanticide.
I don't like China's policy either, it is totalitarianism at it's best, but at least they recognized their problem. I hadn't heard of Tom Leykis but I do like the suggestion. Something has to be done about this problem soon, and the government really needs to re-evaluate this and many of their other policies regarding taxes and expenditures. I don't think society at large should have to shoulder so much of the burden for other people's children, be it dependent deductions or school property taxes. Maybe if it was a bigger financial investment parenting would be a more thought-out decision for some, and perhaps result in fewer unwanted children.
There is no way there will be enough food for our children when they are our age, but we should be fine for a few more years still.
China's policy isn't draconian enough.
Bad times ahead
Inflation will save us all.
That is what Obama and the Fed are counting on...
This works for a industrial country which produces its needed supplies & energy. But the USA is a SERVICE Related economy...
Unfortunately, your/USA cost for basic essentials are going to go up also...
Fuel in the USA will come on par with the EU due to CO2 taxes and inflation - 2 to 4x...
This will drive the cost of EVERY-THING higher. Even more for the imported materials...
If you are on a fixed or low-income job, your expenses will quickly out-pace your ability to feed yourself and the family. Remember Jun 2007???
OMG. The sky is falling! If it gets that bad (which I doubt), there would be a backlash not seen in about 230 years or so.
Besides, this article is about a mismanaged community in Caliphornya and the greed of unions. Not about inflation, Obama, or the EU.
I remember june 2007, that was under Bush. Believe me on this, unlike the republicans that live in denial, I know where to put the Blame!
LordPyrinc: Besides, this article is about a mismanaged community in Caliphornya and the greed of unions. Not about inflation, Obama, or the EU.
If you don't see the correlation between a city whose liabilities exceed it's revenue and the current fiscal situation at the federal level, you are naive. $16,000,000,000,000 in debt (that's $16 trillion for those who don't know), which increases $1,200,000,000,000 every year, what do you think is eventually going to happen? Unfunded liabilities are unfunded liabilities whether they are union retirement benefits or social security or medicare or anything else that is paid for with printed money. The bill eventually comes due, and when it can't be met we will all experience the same standard of living as San Bernadino.
yes Ac Robertson, but the things that are already inflated can be left as such and not adjusted up. so yes gas at 8 dollars, SSI at 1800, milk at 8 dollars, minimum wages at 17, but inflated retirement deals don't go up. and the 16 trillions feels like 8. there would be some problems, mostly on the import export front but there are some problems anyhow.
Do you really get to say your a vet if you serve in the coast gaurd.
Yes, the USCG is a branch of the military services. They actually serve all over the world, not just in the US. There are coast guard people serving throughout the Pacific region, and in Latin America and Africa. The first units responding at the start of the Korean "Police Action" were coast guard. Know them and respect what they do!!
save the environment,
The things that are already inflated will stay the same??? Ha! Ha!
Four years ago a barrel of cude was less than $46+USD for WTI, it has been averaging above $90+USD a barrel for 3+years. Due to taxes and regulation changes...
Remember Obama stated that ENERGY prices will necessarily skyrocket...
Beginning in 2008, then-Candidate Obama led a charge designed to increase the cost of nearly every kind of energy Americans currently consume. At the time, people chose to ignore his stated goal of limiting consumption, but the quotes are now coming home to roost. “Under my cap and trade plan,” Obama said, “electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket.” He even threatened to bankrupt anyone stupid enough to build a coal plant, saying that “if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can — it’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”
Where oil is concerned, the president has an even longer, equally dismal record. In 2008, noted physicist and vocal global warming advocate Steven Chu told The New York Times, “Somehow, we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” His goal was to increase the cost slowly, over the course of 15 years. Parity with the Europeans would have Americans paying between $8 and $10 a gallon. Shortly after his New York Times interview, Chu was appointed U.S. energy secretary and the administration started implementing his recommendations.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/13/high-energy-prices-are-an-obama-administration-goal/#ixzz2CM5FDZeA
BTY - Almost ALL retirement accounts have COLAs...
This is exactly what the Libtards and Obama are doing to the Federal Government and the USA.... and the result will be the same... a complete and total economic collapse coming in 2013. You don't borrow and spend your way out of debt and entitlements you cannot afford. Obamacare is the final nail in the USA coffin. No one can afford it, and the only ones who want it are the 47% of losers and deadbeats at the bottom who contribute nothing and suck up every welfare freebie they can gobble. When the party ends, and it will happen in 2013 or sooner, I hope starvation and destruction comes to the 47% at the bottom who pay no income taxes. They are ignorant worthless leeches and human garbage.
So Social Security recipients and disabled Veterans are " ignorant worthless leeches and human garbage ", huh? That's very interesting since these are the people that have spent most of their lives making sure you have the right to spout such vitriol: the over 65's that paid the taxes for your roads, schools, parks, etc, you know, the infrastructure, and the Military that went and fought several Republican sanctioned wars to keep your sorry dupa free. You have a lot of nerve, pal.
I hope you have all the wealth of Midas so you never find yourself in a sorry, unexpected predicament. Food stamps look pretty reasonable to a retiree whose retirement accounts were lost, or "absorbed", that is CONFISCATED, by the likes of the vulture capitalists. Now there's the true "worthless leeches and human garbage". So sad and pathetic that they're your heroes.
paddywhack : You know the people he's talking about & it's not the Social Security recipients who spent the best years of their lives in the workforce or military veterans. He's talking about those that refuse to work because they feel the rest of of us owe them. They contribute nothing and have no intentions of ever contributing anything. Most are just lazy leeches and every 4 years most of them are bused to the voting stations to vote Democrat so their sorry lifestyle can continue.
Zheng He, Paddywhack, you both for get that in the 47% there are a lot of Republicans, probably half. I really get a kick out of you guys that think you are so infallable. I have news for you, your not! I don't think there are to many people that haven't had a set back or two in their lives. One thing I will tell you is when it happens, people like you get hit the hardest.
He probably didn't mean the verterans and legitimately retired, but he shouldn't have said 47%. The point is true, though. We just finally got out of IL, which is a big time welfare state. It s so corrupt that I don't know how they get away with it. When a government is run by poliicians who have a) unions and b) welfare poor as their voting base, they constantly go after the average working person. In IL, people who don't work for the state, or are not on some gov. assistance are constantly having their income stripped from them to pay for this crap. We moved from there because our state and local taxes were going up faster than our income. Pretty soon you are going to have to be either wealthy or on welfare to live there.
We have one child, and we work hard to provide for him, and it is discouraging to make sacrifices to send our kid to activities, only to find out that the welfare poor get to do those same activities for free that we are paying an arm and a leg for. In fact, I suspect the reason our prices are so high is to cover the cost of their free ride. Why work, just so you can pay for the things that most of the state is getting for free? The cost of nearly everything is either free or discounted for folks on public assistance, so the cost of everything for the working is sky high. The only big difference between their lifestyle and mine is that I have to pay much more for it!
I just don't understand how people can deny pensions are a root cause for the bankruptcy of municipalities. Of course politicians take kickbacks and back alley deals but how can someone justify a pension that pays out 70-100% of annual income when the worker is no longer contributing anything? If someone wants to argue that it is deferred compensation and they are owed that much then I'd like to know how to justify paying an EMT $200K+ a year because that is what it effectively means.
Pension, benefit and retirement packages obfuscate the real cost of the labor.
I don't see the problem. Turn the pensions over to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. It's good enough for private companies. Should be good enough for the public sector. Pension will be cut 30 to 70%. It is a great deal and the City can start over and align benefits that are more realistic. Public servants need to realize they serve the public. When the benefits and salaries make so the cities can no longer afford to provide the service there's a problem.
Or you can just blame it on George Bush. That seems to work.
Yes, blame Bush......that will be Obama's excuse for another 4 years. Yep, that works.
Bush/Cheney is the Catalist for the events we are facing today. Quit living in denial.
@ dogs - you didn't read the article very closely did you? George and Dick didn't set up those God awful pension plans that now rape government coffers. Get you head out of the sand. The problem comes down to gaming the system, demanding increases in lean years and spending money you simply don't have year after year after year. The reason we have that happen isn't just because the Republicans (And sometimes Democrats.) don't' want to raise taxes. It's also because the Democrats (and sometimes Republicans.)love to spend money and figure they will be out of office before the bill arrives.
One law that needs to be implemented is that all government employees need to use the very same system the rest of us use. No special pensions for government workers. They get SS just like the rest of us. No pensions for politicians. They get SS like the rest of us. No special health plans for politicians. They get insurance like the rest of us. That alone would cut out a lot of the bull@!$%#.
The problems we face have nothing to do with Bush. It has a lot to do with Carter and Clinton. Forcing banks to give loans for homes to people that can not pay the loan back is what got us into this mess.
The wars were voted on by both parties. Look in the mirror, you are one of the people that wanted retaliation for 9/11. 90% of Americans supported Bush going to war.
Any actuary can calulate what these benefits will cost and what is the breaking point. They do it for insurance companies who make a profit all of the time. Governor Brown has convinced California to raise taxes to pay for these excessive pension benefits. In the 1970's, no one working for the government expected to make more than 30% of his or her salary when he or she retired. If a person had no personal savings, then he or she lived a modest lifestyle. Somewhere in the 80's public employees started complaining that they were not making what people made in private industry and started making demands on their politicians who did not have to pay for the benefits, the public pays. These crooks have now bankrupted cities and the state. The Union, with public money dripping from its fingures, has this silly ass look on its face claiming it is innocent. We clearly need a depression to convince these knuckleheads that we cannot print our way of this mess.
Don't forget all the tax dollars that go to Mid Easterners. Americans could use that money also. Now, they want to tax us somemore. Just doesn't add up. Do you think?
Liberal Socialist politics and Unions! Need I say more. All of CA is in that situation. They finally ran out of other peoples money. Ha!
"Political corruption, social greed, and Americanized quasi-socialism can ruin even the most wonderful places. California proved that." Tiffany Madison
Awww Poor cons.
A story containing the truth on NBCNEWS.com about the unions and their corruption, I didn't think I would live to see the day. This is their version of a document dump on Friday since the election is over now.
The unions are worse than the mafia. They hold all of us hostage until we give them money. The teachers unions even worse, they hold the kids hostage until they get what they want. And the bull@!$%# that they are helping the people is utterly vile. Anyone who does not see that they are strictly out for themselves is delusional or blind. This article should be required reading in all schools and by all liberals who think this is great and what should happen with the unions, they get everything they want. They destroy everything they touch. They are just like leeches, will feed on you until the host is drained of blood then move on to the next victim.
The unions ARE the Mafia; don't you read any history?
And just for the record: I am a Liberal, and I loathe the unions. I don't understand the equating of a liberal mindset to being for the unions, as you did. Maybe initially, 100 years ago during the Industrial age when little kids had to work in sweatshops and coal mines, and people worked for 14 hours at 10 cents a day, I would have agreed with 'unionizing', but it's gone way past that, and I don't believe that thinking Liberals agree with it the way it stands now.
And btw, all the people I know that are members of unions vote straight Republican ticket, and are proud to tell ya.
The argument for or against union is irrelevent. Remember clintons "new economy" with "no more manufacturing in America"? There are no longer wealth producing productive jobs where a union does or does not have a place.
Yeh, yeh, yeh, and what when Baseball went on strike just before the World Series, I forget what year. I have never watched a baseball game since. Than Football striking in mid season? Screw them to.
n. n. paddywhack
This is what I said. Since you obviously do not fall into the category of giving everything the unions ask for, and in this case even more than they asked for, that would not apply to you. But there is a mindset in a lot of the liberal corners that this is somehow acceptable behavior and are pushing hard for more of it. It is all done for power, not for the benefit of the people and is a disgusting display of greed. They are destroying the community all for the sake of the almighty dollar.
Nobody is listening.
The takers are out-numbering the workers.
People will vote for anyone that promises them free-bees.
"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it." -- Dr. Adrian P. Rogers
@Tumbleweed, I usually go along with what you say. but disagree and agree with you on the freebees. Poor people don't want to be there, but can't do much about it even by voting. Rich people will take freebees even if they have to invent somebody to get it for them.
I'll bet if you stopped their welfare payments they'd do something about it, and if that results in them moving elsewhere, fine. Maybe some of them would actually get a job.
Dogs the problem is it's not just the poor and you know it. These days it's no longer even a veiled bribe from politicians running for office. It's a flat out "I will pay you money to vote for me." bribe.
6dogs This is America. You can be all you want to be, all you have to do is apply yourself. The poor want to stay poor, as long as they get their hand outs, they will never want to apply themselves for a better way of life. They are content being lazy and poor.
Never fear...the China will buy it. We will all soon be thanking China for saving our country...and it doesn't matter who's in office at what level.
It was not that long ago that if California had been its own nation the economy was rated among the top 5 strongest in the world. It was the one place in the nation where if you did not have a job it was a personal choice. It had one of the best education systems in the nation. The best police and justice system in the nation. A beautiful state and a wonderful place to live. The only time in my career I was ever out of work was the Carter runaway inflation recession and now clintons "new economy".
Then a cetain political party made the brilliant decision to regulate business to the strangulation point so the productive jobs (many of them after generations in California) left. Taxed the "rich" until they left. Increasing social welfare programs at the same time tax revenue was decreasing attracting large numbers of multi-generational welfare citizens from across the nation. Allowed the massive influx of 3rd world excess population with the: degraded educational system, justice system, environmental stresses, unskilled workforce, crime and drugs that brings.
I wonder how the same scenerio would play out on a NATIONAL level? You want to see the America of the future< look at California ... it usually is 5 to 15 years ahead in of the rest of the nation.
Public unions have got to go. Maybe if the Democrats pick up enough Latino votes to off set the loss of Union votes it can happen. One thing for sure, the Public union will have no where to go. Republicans won't touch them with a stick.
When the "government" is the last major employer left something is drasticallyout of balance amd unsustainable.
"stupid is what stupid does"
A lot of things wrong in California and this is a good example. Having done taxes for four years now, CALPERS pays exorbitant amounts of money to public employees' retirement benefits. Three of my customers were public school teachers with a flat $75,000 to $80,000 a year retirement from CALPERS. The problem is when the unions get involved and ASK for more for retirement. Unions have to realize that you can't ask more money from companies and governments that are struggling to maintain a budget. If increasing pay and retirement payouts are more than what private sector pays for, then there is something terribly wrong there. Unions cannot expect the money to pay that just to be lying around or come out of thin air. It's not mathematically feasible or economically sustainable in the long run. It's happening in other industries as well especially the auto industry. Unions had their place decades ago in US history, but not now in this kind of economic climate. You cannot ask for more money that isn't there to begin with.
Freaking amazing. From 97 to now I'm making 20% less and these goons are makng almost double?
Welcome to the real world.. slash their pay and cut their freaking benefits.
Stories like this will turn this independent into a GD republican.
Was is lost in all of this is that Public service jobs were initially bridge jobs for new immigrants to this country and meant to assist until you could find a REAL job. I could care less what any union wants to pay out in pensions as long as they are self supporting. Any use of taxpayers money to support bloated pensions is unacceptable. And yet everyone is still at the trough looking at each other unable to see the forest through the trees
Unions don't pay the pensions, my friend, taxpayers do. The role of unions is to bully local politicians into constantly sweetening the pie.
Flood the schools with anchor babies, force the hospitals to give preferred treatment to anyone who may be illegal out of fear of a law suit and just plain old stupidity leads to this!
Welcome to the new America.
Democrats at their finest. Soon to come to the once great U.S.A. Obama has approved this messege.
Awww Keep crying... LOL
Local politicians bought and paid for by the Unions. Shouldn't be a surprise... since higher level politicians are bought and paid for by the Corporations. There will be a tipping point, and it looks like the "progressive" state of Caliphornya is one of the first to fall. Wasting tax dollars on promoting "Meatless Mondays" while parts of the state go bankrupt. At this rate, we should cut our losses and give Caliphornya back to Mexico.
Union thugs...Americans must think this is ok, 99% just voted republican and democrat. You vote for these crooks, live with them. peace