California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently submitted a "budget" to the Legislature that eliminates CalWORKS, the state's highly successful welfare-to-work program that is needed now more than ever. This move would make California the only state in the nation to dismantle its safety net. He's even willing to throw away the federal matching funds CalWORKS receives and to toss 1 million children (who make up about 76 percent of the program) into desperate poverty.
Destroying the state's only work-training program in a period of 12.5 percent unemployment and record home foreclosures might sound pretty extreme but Schwarzenegger still enjoys press coverage that paints him as a "moderate," most recently in the form of a 1,200-word love letter by Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times. If any journalist bothers to look at his record it should be clear that Schwarzenegger doesn't really believe in the public sector. He has repeatedly said that government cannot do anything worthwhile for society. He was a cheerleader for the Bush-Cheney policies of deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. He has recklessly held the state's budget hostage to ram through policies that won't take effect until long after he exits the stage, policies which have virtually no support outside his coterie of sycophants.
No California governor, not Ronald Reagan, not George Deukmejian, not Pete Wilson, has so bludgeoned the state's employees. After "furloughing" public workers, which was the equivalent of a 14 percent pay cut, Schwarzenegger's latest gambit is to cut their pay down to the level of the federal minimum wage, which is lower than California's. Schwarzenegger is so committed to this abuse that he is literally going to court to force the State Controller John Chiang to comply. Chiang has been trying to reason with the extremists who run the governor's office that it's technically impossible to implement the plan given the state's decrepit computerized payroll system and that the action would also violate federal labor law. Undeterred, Schwarzenegger pushes on without any rational purpose (since it will end up costing the state more in the long run), and without any concern for the lives of 200,000 hard-working Californians who, through no fault of there own, find themselves once again in Schwarzenegger's cross-hairs. It's nothing more than holding state workers hostage to extort Democratic legislators into doing his bidding.
The Democratic "leaders" in Sacramento during Schwarzenegger's reign continue to capitulate to him. From Don Perata to Darrell Steinberg to Fabian Nunez to Karen Bass to John Perez - all of them have failed the voters who elected them; they've failed to be advocates for their core supporters; and they've failed to stand up and show some guts when the time called for it.
Because the Legislature must produce a "supermajority" of 67 percent to pass a budget, a tiny and irresponsible Republican minority has just enough seats to block any budget it doesn't like - which is any budget that is protective of public institutions. Schwarzenegger then uses his executive control over the Legislature to make insane demands like eliminating welfare and impoverishing the state's public sector workforce. A phony "standoff" ensues until Democratic "leaders" come crawling on their hands and knees, which they always do, only to seal themselves off behind closed doors to "negotiate" a budget. When they emerge from the governor's office the result is always the same: the public sector gets fleeced again. Each year at budget time, Schwarzenegger divides and conquers the Democrats' political base by pitting public employee unions and other liberal advocacy groups against each other. He is currently once again terrorizing state workers and their families to get changes in the way their pension plan is managed that would not take effect until years from now, long after he is back home in his Jacuzzi smoking his pricey cigars.
All of this pain and suffering inflicted on the people who work for the Great State of California is so that the top 1 percent of taxpayers, about 150,000 individuals, who have nearly doubled their share of the state's total income since 1993, don't have to pay any additional taxes. It's class warfare. Twenty years of privatizing and deregulating have resulted not only in the putrefaction of California's public institutions, but also the hardening of class lines and the cementing of an oligarchy.
In a real democratic republic - res-publica - the Democrats who hold solid majorities in both chambers of the Legislature would produce their own budget, even an ersatz one, and then send it to the governor for his signature or veto. They could send him virtually the same budget over and over again for a period of days, weeks, or months. Headlines would read: "Governor Schwarzenegger Vetoes Another Budget," followed by op-eds asking: "Why Doesn't Schwarzenegger Compromise?" Let the Governor veto the budget a thousand times. Each time the Democratic leaders could tell the press how "disappointed" they are with his intransigence. The Democrats could also highlight the pain and suffering - even in the private sector - that Schwarzenegger's budget extremism has caused. Instead, the Democratic "leaders" choose to go behind closed doors in the governor's office where they always get taken for a ride. That's a hell of a way to run the world's eighth largest economy with a population larger than Canada's. It's ironic that President Obama has gone to great lengths to cultivate mutually beneficial economic ties with the G-20 nations while this nation passively sits by and watches as California drops into the Pacific Ocean.
If we're going to have a form of corporate feudalism in California then we might as well turn over the reins of power to a real monarch. The billionaire CEO princess, Meg Whitman, who wants to be governor as a steppingstone toward becoming the first woman president, is perfect for that regal distinction. She has already spent over $90 million of her own money to buy the governorship. And it looks like she bribed one of the nation's top Republican strategists, Michael Murphy, to join her campaign with a million dollar "investment" in his production company. Her Majesty is currently running a slick TV commercial attacking her opponent, Attorney General Jerry Brown, which has the production qualities of a Pepsi Cola campaign. Whitman wants to fire 40,000 state workers, hack off another $15 billion from the budget, privatize government services including the pension plan, and lavish more tax cuts on big corporations and her rich Republican friends. In addition to her hit pieces on Brown, Whitman is also running what the advertising executives on the "Tuesday Team" of Ronald Reagan's 1984 campaign used to call "feel-good ads." We see wind turbines and redwood forests, beaches and exciting cityscapes, with Meg in soft-focus sharing with her subjects (in an intimate setting) a string of saccharine Reaganisms. She very well could be the next governor of California.
Follow Joseph A. Palermo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/N/A
And I may, for the first time in my life have to move from California. Much of the damage that's already been done to our society may well prove to be unrepairable. As our millionaires and billionaires decimate our state for their own advantage, they've sapped the life from our economy. They've left us with the third highest unemployment rate in the nation, and Whitman only promises to add to it even while she promises us "jobs." I've taken that to mean the job she intends to do on the rest of us.
There is a proposition on this November's ballot that will do away with the super-majority requirement to pass this state's budget. If you live in California, please vote! And vote for that proposition. That will effect at least a partial solution to one of California's worst problems.
I, for one, would love to be brought up to the pay standards for Federal employees doing similar work, much less the private sector norms. Instead, I'm looking to leave. Talented people are leaving state service in droves, and technical positions are going begging for lack of qualified applicants. You get what you pay for.
Joseph is right, Arnold is conducting class warfare -- with a calculator. And it's not just public sector employees who will lose in the long run; it is all middle and working class Californians.
I hate to confuse you with logic and factual information.But,a couple of points should help you be a little more accurate.
1) The governor doesn't make the budget. he ccan't proclaim a 20 % or any other % cut.
2)Calpers is promised an *% increase on pension funds /year. If the investments don't produce this , taxpayers must make up the difference.
Does this change your views?
http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/executive-order/10333/
Projections for Calpers vary widely depending on who is making the projection. IOW, no one knows how market forces will shake out in the years to come. The point is that for many years employees were given retirement benefits in lieu of salary increases, as the state thought the boom would go on forever and such benefits were essentially free. Now, for many job categories, salaries are a third or more below what federal and local government pays, never mind the private sector. It pension promises are rolled back too, without adjusting salaries, qualified employees will leave and not be replaceable. This is already happening, and promises to get worse. Good luck finding attorneys, scientists, engineers, etc..
Facts and logic are good things. You should try them.
The highly talented people are already leaving California. You don't have to urge them.In Larry Niven's "Warlock' stories he postulates a small fall in IQ as smart people leave an area.
But, ignore this.Find a conspiracy.Those 'smart people" should at least be heavily fined for trying to leave.
1983-84 - Budget $26.8 billion (Population 26 million) $1000/person
2006-07 - Budget $131.4 billion (Population 36 million) $3,600/person
So the budget & spending has increased 5 fold, the people paying in hasn't even doubled. Inflation has an effect but it is swamped by the increased per capita spending
Put on top of that the 12,000 state and local employees who have over $100,000 in pension payments (increasing at a rapid rate) and we are Greece.
Maybe we need a proposition to tax state pension payments.
The problem with the state is the minority Republicans. You think they're obstructionist in Congress? You ain't seen nothing until you've seen Cal Reps annual "block the budget" debacle. They are why CA is almost ungovernable. The majority of citizens want a state government that actually provides services, the minority Republicans want to dismantle state governtment, and the minority has the power when it comes to the budget.
We under funded the pensions for years and the moment the stock market (it is all Wall street’s fault) did not provide the 8% each year required to make the numbers work, it all goes down the drain, just like economists have been predicting for years. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to earn 8% a year risk free?! The assumptions were ludicrous but were used because the politicians could get campaign donations (bribes) without showing the taxpayer the true cost. Both the Republicans and the Democrats in the state have been living off the donations for years.
It is crazy that the union is allowed to bribe the politician who pockets the cash. They politician then spends taxpayer money to pay off the bribe. And you know the union would only do it if the bribe is less than the pay off. Taxpayer loses.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124260067214828295.html
"Or consider the fiasco of New Jersey. In the early 1960s, the state had no state income tax and no state sales tax. It was a rapidly growing state attracting people from everywhere and running budget surpluses. Today its income and sales taxes are among the highest in the nation yet it suffers from perpetual deficits and its schools rank among the worst in the nation ..."
Unfortunately the state gives every appearance of being ungovernable, which is why Arizona, Montana and Colorado have so many former Californians.
Watch Greece and follow that example. Or don't and go broke.
Of course, if we just had a fair tax and decent regulations with leaders that would follow them we wouldn't even be in this situation. Canada, with all her expensive social programs -but solid bank regulations - did just fine in our bank-fail fiasco.
Take a look at the section in the middle where it describes public pensions for state employees. Basically police and fire are 3% at 50 (3% of your highest salary per year, starting at 50) capped at 90%, so after 20 years your pension stops growing, a huge incentive to quit and get a second job. For most regular employees it is 2.7% at 55, but with no cap, so after 37 years you could retire at 100% of your highest salary earned.
On top of this, the retirement pools mostly use a 7.8% expected annual return. So if the investments don't earn 7.8% then the taxpayer has to top up the fund as if it did (all be it at a 5 to 10 year moving average) which is why costs have skyrocketed up in the last years, because the market has not performed as anticipated.
It is essentially a part time job, with teachers generally working from 160-180 days per year as compared the 220 or more worked by almost all other employees (except university professors).
No one has ever been forced, against their will, to be a teacher, at least not that I'm aware of.
And afterall, who gives a crap about the education of our country?