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Dan Walters: Angry voters whack budget, politicians
Sacramento Bee ^ | 5/20/9 | Dan Walters

Posted on 05/20/2009 8:02:54 AM PDT by SmithL

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To: Luke21
I was wondering if anyone would notice that. Front line services are always the first thing cut, not the well entrenched patronage.

Somebody around here recently posted a list of all the Ca. state agencies. I printed it out...it was 11 pages long! Seems you could eliminate 10 of those pages without touching essential frontline services.

21 posted on 05/20/2009 9:03:06 AM PDT by shorty_harris
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To: ArmyTeach

California cannot afford to subsidize Mexico.
California has been invaded by Mexican Citizens......They’re friendly Invaders, but they need to go Home and fix the Mexican Government. The Illegals have Bankrupted the state, Enforce the Immigration laws.....there is a reason for the Laws.


22 posted on 05/20/2009 9:35:09 AM PDT by 4Speed
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To: SmithL

I don’t have the numbers, but the cost of medical care for illegal aliens is enormous. IIRC something over 10 billion. (I could be wrong on the number.)

On the other hand, when a proposal was made to eliminate the Solid Waste Management Board (not sure of the name), it died. It’s a soft landing spot for termed-out legislators. Admittedly, it would only save a few million a year. But it’s an easy cut. There’s no political constituency other than the legislators old buddies. If they can’t make the easy cuts, what can they do?


23 posted on 05/20/2009 9:40:49 AM PDT by pelicandriver
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To: RightOnTheLeftCoast
Excellent rant! You should send it to the Gov's office.

Hopefully, what they say of CA will hold true in that what happens here eventually happens in the rest of the nation.

We are SICK of paying the government to WASTE our money!

STARVE THE BEAST.

24 posted on 05/20/2009 9:42:41 AM PDT by ggrrrrr23456
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To: RC2
If the State of California cuts Fire and Police protection the people should raise hell.

We have small city Police Chiefs in California who make more than the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And then they retire at 90% of their last years salary. If they don't cut some of that stuff we should riot.

25 posted on 05/20/2009 10:58:34 AM PDT by atomic_dog
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To: RC2

yes and construction workers, miners, bus drivers, farmers have given their lives up also for the job. should they all be given outragous benifits and pension plans also???
how much can taxpayers stand to pay retirees???

I know a deputy that never once had to draw a gun in defense, court baliff actually, who is retired after 30 years at age 53 on 80% of max salary plus cost of living increases for life.
what’s with that?????
i know of some firefighters (wild fire fighters) that only work summer, get paid very little, no benifits, they are dropped into raging wild fires, and that is danger!! but being part time fire fighters, they dont have no big powerful union to threaten the tax payers to give them more money.

plenty of the local cops are nothing more than glorified tax collectors, writting tickets to raise money (not traffic safety) even writting illegal tickets in a parking ticket scam, sanctioned by the police chief!!! (redwood city calif) we got teh code enforcers, they have cop status yet all they do is write folks up on nany state code violations. god I hate these kind of cops.

the true hero cops are few and far between, dont lump them all together with the worthless leeches that wear the uniform also.

fire fighters may risk life as do other professionals, they are not corrupted like the police can be, they take real risks, but I say pay them upfront enough that they can manage their own retirement, dont put taxpayers on the hook for the next 50 years for a pension plan. certainly have insurance for fire fighters injured in the line of duty. but stop this insane pension plan, no one deserves these kinds of pensions, they are unsustainable. cut them to zero, no more pensions period.
End the police and fire fighter unions, they are like gangsters, there shoudl be no collective contracts, pay each worker based ontheir performance. most us taxpayers do not have union thugs to get us undeserved pay raises.

the fire and police are important, but they are both full of waste. they could be cut maybe 10-20% and not effect safety. the police could be cut more before safety is effected, if the cuts are made in the right places.

we have a big fat fancy new city police station, copper roof, high pretty ceilings, a great taj ma hall of a police station, they could have run the police out of a rented trailer, and put the cops on patrol. no tears shed if the police budget is slashed.


26 posted on 05/20/2009 12:25:26 PM PDT by dhm914
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To: atomic_dog

Hey....I agree with some of what you said. But to cut fire and police protection, I believe, shouldn’t be lumped in with schools. Take them as individual entitys.


27 posted on 05/20/2009 3:33:39 PM PDT by RC2
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To: dhm914

When we start putting the police and fire fighters in with the schools, we will never solve anything. Each should be looked at seperately and dealt with seperately.


28 posted on 05/20/2009 3:35:17 PM PDT by RC2
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To: RC2
Police, firemen and teachers are not state employees. They are city and county employees.

There are over 250,000 State employees that have to be cut first. And there are a lot of them that nobody knows what their job is.

29 posted on 05/20/2009 6:30:33 PM PDT by BobS
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To: BobS

A lot of the State employees don’t even know what their job is. They are just filling empty slots to increase the budget. No more......for awhile anyway.


30 posted on 05/20/2009 6:35:00 PM PDT by RC2
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