Posted on 01/14/2009 8:54:08 AM PST by SmithL
Nearly 800 advocates for California's "working families" gathered in downtown Sacramento on Tuesday, and they had plenty to talk about.
Deep cuts to programs that fund food and health care and affordable housing for the state's most vulnerable people. Rising unemployment and demand for social services. Alarming school dropout rates.
It was enough to tear Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg away from budget negotiations at the Capitol to rally the group of nonprofit staffers, policymakers and others at the Sacramento Convention Center.
Steinberg, six weeks into his new job, admitted that he has not been getting out much lately.
"I've been mired in trying to solve the most difficult budget challenge in the most difficult economic crisis in my lifetime," he said, admitting that he is humbled by the task. "We have to make sure we do everything we can to protect the vulnerable, and at the same time make the painful decisions required to balance this budget."
Steinberg laid out the centerpiece of his vision for lifting up California's working families. He wants to invest the state's infrastructure dollars to help businesses create "career academies" to train young people for environmentally sound "green" jobs that pay well and offer health, retirement and other benefits.
"The real answer is to create an economic and job base that guarantees decent wages and benefits," he said.
His remarks were met with an ovation.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
So who paid for these 800 people to go to Sacramento? Who paid for the Convention Center? Who pays these peoples salaries? How much money does this add up to?
These hypocrites spend money on themselves, while they lobby for more of our tax dollars, TO DO WHAT CHRUCHES DO!!
Blood sucking vampires with arrogant snotty noses!!!
Did it ever occur to them that there might be some connection between dropping out of school and being unemployed?
They voted in the highest cost of living on the planet, and now they complain that they just can’t make ends meet and refuse to reduce the very thing that has put them where they are in the first place.
Smart people.....The process of selective elimination in action.
Yeah, I’m a little north of Chattanooga in a rural area and we’re seeing quite a few folks from CA move into the area...I fear that they will bring their liberalism with them and ruin it for all of us.....No. What they will do, however - thanks to the fact that people in every state have voted for idiotic property taxes on real estate to fund government schools and everything else - is cause real estate prices to artificially inflate as Californians come in, flush with cash, and pay top dollar for properties that they see as terrific "bargains" in comparison to what they left behind in the land of fruits and nuts. That drives up real estate prices along with property tax assessments.
If you want to stay in the home you've paid for for years, maybe even paid off, you suddenly find that your property taxes have skyrocketed. You end up being forced to pay exhorbitant rent to the government to just be able to stay in your home, or you have to sell.
But some bureaucrat will say, "But you will get more for your property because of the increase in values." Technically, yes. But what if you don't want to move? And if you're forced to move, where will you move to? You end up buying another home with its inflated value and your big pot of equity vanishes.
That is the evil that we have voluntarily foisted upon ourselves in this country by ignoring the admonitions of our founding fathers and voting in a system of taxation on real property in every state so that essentially, the government owns all of the property and we pay rent (called "property taxes") for the priviledge of being able to live on it.
And, to add insult to injury, every state, city, and local municipality has an "Assessor" who makes sure your property is "assessed" every year to ensure that the government is raking in all it can from you. And, in most cases, you voted for the Assessor too.
The dance of the mooches and they want pie.
Take the pie out of your mouth, telebob. Take the pie out of your family’s mouth and put it in my mouth!
He** no, that want more taxes and more money given to them because they are not working families, they are welfare queens.
You should see the folks dropping off their little parasites for "free breakfast" and "free lunch" at a local school. You'll notice many are driving very late model, expensive cars.
I stood in line at the grocery behind a welfare recipient who paid for a huge load of stuff with a "Lone Star" card and food stamps. They promptly hauled it out to the parking lot and put it in their brand new convertible.
And let's not say anything about the illegal f'n aliens overcrowding the schools, and living in the federal Section 8 compartment house down the street. Or the fact that their arrival coincided with a dramatic rise in broken car windows on the nearby streets.
These "advocates" are most likely taking home a very healthy tax paid salary that motivates their heart felt "caring".
We started seeing this phenomenon about 3 years ago. My primary residence has already seen a doubling in the property taxes in the past 3 years, thanks to newbies that have moved into the area and built McMansions. We also have the additional "benefit" of being a desirable place for retirees. Most of them are called "half backs" because they are northeastern Libs who moved to Florida, but couldn't take the heat, humidity, skeeters and hurricanes. So, they moved "halfway back". Thus, halfbacks. I'm probably more concerned about the halfbacks than I am Californians. I think most of the folks fleeing California are relatively conservative, especially when compared to the half backs.
Actually, I'm hoping to benefit from the influx of all that cash in the not too distant future by selling my current residence and moving to my farm where I have kept my taxes low thanks to the Greenbelt farmland legislation. I saw this coming a good ten years ago when I started building this house and, as such, I built it with the intent to sell it at some point. Since I've done virtually everything myself with regard to it's construction, (lots and lots of sweat equity) I hope that I will do well when it comes time to sell. There are a number of "spec" houses on the market in my area at the moment and they appear to be selling, albeit at a slower rate than a few years ago. We don't seem to have had the real estate bubble burst here quite yet.....
It seems to me that a powerful (if incomplete) antidote to all these welfare programs is to constantly present the other side of the coin: The hard-working people who must pay unreasonable percentages of their income to the government to pay for these fraud-ridden programs.
I make an average salary and lose at least one-third of it to taxes. They are taxing me back to an almost subsistence level, even though I work more than 40 hours a week.
In Massachusetts, where there seems to be basically welfare on demand, I have seen a number of people over the years who have never worked yet have more spending money than I. The welfare mothers with an employed boyfriend in their Section 8 have the most spending money. I call this The New Two-Income Family.
Politicians seeking to discredit welfare on demand should present examples of this phenomenon to counter all of the parading of the victims done by the Left. However, I see absolutely none of this. Granted, the MSM has a strong liberal bias, but some of these stories would be broadcast/printed.
I must get Ann Coulter’s new book, as it seems to present this argument. We need more of this. She is hilarious, and I appreciate the fact that she just laughs at her critics and won’t back down. You go girl!
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