[NormsRevenge]

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."

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institutionalized corruption.

In a nutshell, what we fight here, day in and day out.

Donate to FR and keep the tea flowing. ;-)

[WOBBLY BOB]

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/

[Roamin53]

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.

[omega4412]

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.

[norton]

The funny [sad] part is that literally all government workers, California state employees certainly, believe that they are the hardest working, most underpaid, and responsible workers in America. They believe that their bloated pensions and pay grade inflation are entirely appropriate. And, they believe that their no value added "services" are vitally necessary.

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.]

[Rio]

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?