Posted on 01/21/2010 9:28:07 AM PST by NormsRevenge
At a time when the salaries and retirement benefits enjoyed by public employees in California are among the most generous in the nation, a growing number of prominent leaders are calling on elected officials to cut government pay, perks and pensions rather than reducing services to poor, sick and disabled people.
In an attempt to close a $19.9 billion shortfall, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget calls for cutting or eliminating health and welfare services to millions of seniors, children and low- income residents.
Los Angeles County alone stands to lose up to $3 billion in state revenues, according to a county analysis. Under the governor's proposed budget, more than 185,000 seniors and people with disabilities would be put at risk of institutionalization or death and more than 400,000 parents and children would lose welfare benefits.
The state has managed to avoid the proposed cuts through borrowing and other measures, but California is running out of options, said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies.
Elected officials are left with stark choices: cut deeply into programs, reduce salaries and benefits or raise taxes - or a combination of all three.
"California's children and our vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities deserve better than to be caught in the middle of a dangerous game of chicken," said Frank Mecca, executive director of the County Welfare Directors Association of California.
The proposal to make massive cuts in health and welfare programs comes as the number of government workers and the size of their salaries and pensions has grown in recent decades, said Steven B. Frates, a senior fellow at the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College.
"Expenditures for public pensions have gone up much faster than the per capita personal income of the citizens who pay for them, which means there has been a wealth transfer from the taxpayers to the recipients of those benefits," Frates said. "Over the last five or 10 years, government revenues went up very fast, but spending went up faster. ... It was primarily for the salaries and benefits of government employees."
Last week, county Supervisor Michael Antonovich called on the governor and state lawmakers to trim its work force and workers' salaries.
"Between 1997 and 2007, our state work force exploded by 24 percent, from 719,000 to 895,000 employees," Antonovich said. "Nearly 15,000 full-time employees have an annual base salary over $100,000. Additionally, in November 2003, there were only eight state employees making over $200,000 - today that number is well over 1,000. This reckless spending must stop."
In a Jan. 3 San Francisco Chronicle column, former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown Jr. said 80 percent of state, county and city budget deficits are due to public-employee costs. He called on fellow politicians to address the "out-of-control civil service" system that now "runs the show" and has secured "incredibly generous retirement packages" and salaries for government employees.
Since 2004, the number of public servants in the state collecting $100,000-plus pensions - including one making nearly $500,000 a year - has exploded from about 2,500 to more than 12,000.
Stern said elected officials now recognize that serious steps - such as addressing the "ticking time bomb" of public pension benefits - must be taken.
But Stern said public- employee unions have "tremendous clout" in the Legislature and that he doubts lawmakers will agree to the cuts in pay and benefits necessary to avert reductions in services to low-income people.
Mark Meckler, the national and California coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, a 15 million-member nonpartisan grass-roots organization, said his group is gathering signatures for the Citizen Power Initiative (www.unplugthepoliticalmachine.org) - a proposed November ballot initiative that would cut off the flow of taxpayer funds to public- employee unions.
"They were given the right in the 1970s to have the government collect money from the wages of public employees, and that has been used by the unions to influence the political process," Meckler said.
"That's institutionalized corruption."
Mary Gutierrez, spokeswoman for Service Employees International State Council, which represents 700,000
public- and private-sector workers, said the government and the unions do need to "restructure the pension system a bit." But she said the Tea Party initiative is "ridiculous" and that public-employee unions are not the "root of the problem."
"They were given the right in the 1970s to have the government collect money from the wages of public employees, and that has been used by the unions to influence the political process," Meckler said.
"That's institutionalized corruption."
institutionalized corruption.
In a nutshell, what we fight here, day in and day out.
Donate to FR and keep the tea flowing. ;-)
Beyond reckless / Sacramento, Washington pile up the debt
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/dec/24/beyond-reckless-sacramento-washington-pile-debt/
CHART OF THE DAY: Bureaucrats Have Way Better Benefits Than You
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-employer-cost-per-hour-worker-2009-12
The number of “civil servants” making $100,000 or more has jumped over 46 percent since the start of the recession.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20091211/1afedpay11_st.art.htm?loc=interstitialskip
Remember, You exist ONLY to support them .
http://www.taxpayerrevolution.org/
We need a national movement to cut pay and benefits (especially pension) benefits at all levels of the so-called civil service. There are loads of statistics that show how out of whack these packages have become. And the abuse of them...even the penchant for Police and Firefighters (much as I love and rspect them) to take their retirement as disabilities, etc.
Getting a job with fire or police departments is like winning the lottery.
If a public employees union supports a candidate for office and the candidate is elected, that official should not be allowed to vote on any contract with that union. This ban should be retroactive. Any contract so approved ought to be invalid.
There are necessary services if there is to be any degree of community outside of the compound, but those very services are always the first to be cut when the budget gets tight.
[Thinking of the Telephone Handset Sterilizers who populated the last chapter of Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxie and couldn't understand how society got along without them.]
I had to drive into CA last weekend. The “Agricultural Inspection Station” was open as usual. Girl asks me if I have any produce. In January? Why are they paying people to stand there at all the entry points checking for produce when nothing is growing now?
Florida, Texas....... alive and well and producing veggies
My father worked at an at inspection station. They are looking for license plates from certain states. Years ago they closed several stations thinking that pesticides would take care of any pests. It was a big mistake.
Be careful when painting with a broad brush as far as Civil Servants go!
FrogDad is a DoD Civil Servant. He makes about 75K a year after working in his field for almost 40 years.
The retirement setup for DoD civilians isn’t that great. You find the year of their highest salary (75K in this case), multiply it by 1% (75K X .01 = 750) and multiply again by number of years of service.
Since his first 24 years were active duty, he’s worked since ‘95 as a Civilian, or 15 years next December. So, if he were to retire in December, his retirement pay would be the magnificent :p sum of 11,250 per year. Or $937 a month. No other benefits, no medical, no nothing.
Show me any union hack, senator, or congress critter with anything approaching that.
Don’t paint so broadly!
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