I know it may have gotten lost in my long rant, but nobody mentioned the inordinate amount of californians on the dole, that is where the real propblem lies, not the pensions. All public safety, fire, police, prisons, courts, prosecutors, etc. make up only 11% of the expenditures while health and human services for the poor make up 1/3rd. All states pay for public safety and in similar fashion, but CA pays far more per capita for welfare than any other, not just a little, but multiples. I’ll repeat it, 11% of the nations population, but 33% of the nations welfare recipients (this includes all form of public assistance combined). Out of 50 states, we are #1 in per capita welfare, double that of the state ranked #10, 3 times the median.
Elimimate every public safety employee and their benefits tomorrow, eliminate every public safety pensioner and you won’t have even solved the state’s defecit. So who wants to touch the third rail, it’s right there, free money to people who don’t work, many who came to this state from other places because of it’s generous benefits. By the way we have twice the per capita on welfare as Michigan
but it only calculates pure payouts, the actual budget is 10x that amount when you factor in medical care and all programs (health and human services budget), wanna talk about what we can no longer afford? Wanna guess where those cops and firemen are spending mosting of their time, dealing with the poor, our #1 import from other states and countries.
