Unions Take Beating in California, Too

Rush Limbaugh.com ^ | June 6, 2012 | Rush Limbaugh

[Kaslin]

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Wisconsin was not the only place that public sector unions got hit yesterday. It also happened in California. First, from the San Diego Union Tribune: "A ballot initiative that would replace guaranteed pensions with 401(k)-style plans for most new city hires received overwhelming support Tuesday from San Diego voters who were clearly fed up with the decade-long civic discussion about the city’s pension problems. Proposition B is viewed by supporters -- including Mayor Jerry Sanders and City Council members Carl DeMaio and Kevin Faulconer -- as pivotal to moving the city past its fiscal woes that stem, in part, from the decision by previous city leaders to twice increase benefits for workers without identifying a way to pay for them."

So pension reform, big, big, big win in San Diego.

The New York Times writes about it this way. "As Wisconsin residents voted on Tuesday not to recall Gov. Scott Walker ... two California cities dealt blows of their own to organized labor." Of course, Wisconsin doesn't mean anything. Wisconsin, it's just an isolated election. No, nothing to see here, nothing to learn. If Tom Barrett had won, if the unions had won, you know what the news would be filled with today. Wisconsin, the way of the future. Wisconsin, microcosm of what's happening in America. The dishonest people in the mainstream media cannot be relied on any longer for a fundamental, simple constitutional requirement, and that is simply reporting news.

"In San Diego and San Jose, voters overwhelmingly approved ballot initiatives designed to help balance ailing municipal budgets by cutting retirement benefits for city workers."

Now, just so I'm not misunderstood here. I'm not rubbing my hands in glee at whatever pain might result from this. What's happening is that the people who pay these pensions and health benefits in perpetuity, until death, have realized they don't have anywhere near the same deal. What happened in Wisconsin was very simple: Taxpayers were finally educated. They heard for the first time about the money-laundering scheme that union dues end up being, campaign contributions to the Democrat Party. They also realized that it was their taxes which are paying pensions and health care benefits when people retire at age 50 for the rest of their lives.

They're paying salaries and benefits to people that work for municipal governments far more than they are earning themselves. And the governments are going broke, and they said, "We can't sustain it anymore." And that's what's happening. Fiscal responsibility. Long way to go, don't misunderstand, long way to go, but the realization that there is an end to this is at hand.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: These union cuts that everybody is talking about, folks, are not Draconian at all. Wisconsin, California. They're just asking union members to pay a little of their own benefits, like 5%. That's all that's going on.

END TRANSCRIPT

[forgotten man]

I wish San Diego could be annexed by Texas.

[Revolting cat!]

Being near the border, it could be, theoretically speaking.

[wecan]

Now if CA would only do it in Sacramento that would wonderful. Think of the billions being spent just for you. Hasn't anybody in the state look at Texas? Meet twice a year in Austin and the rest of the time the reps. are in their own cities and own offices.

wecan

[Paleo Conservative]

I wish San Diego could be annexed by Texas.

If Mirabeau B. Lamar had had his way, Texas would never have been annexed by the United States, and Texas would have extended all the way to the Pacific ocean.