OT: What’s the deal with NPR?

[jstoesz]

duplicate deleted…

[CA renter]

[quote=jstoesz]Come on CAR…These goals are not mutually exclusive. Just because we bailed out the financials, which I was against from the start does not mean that we should avoid the public sector problem. They are completely unrelated as far as the burden to the taxpayer/state is concerned. Do them both, but if you can only politically do one, than do one! If I were faced with an either or decision, it would be to kill the bankers, but that is not my decision…unilaterally of course.

The public unions have to go. if it makes good economic sense to pay firemen outlandish wages, than it will be so (as you claim). An accountable, fiscally speaking, government will make it so. But the unions are not the ones we should be looking to for responsible wages. We should be looking to what the market can bear. And if the market determines that adequate pay for fireman is 1XXk per year than an accountable government can pay that. Maybe I live in a fantasy land, but that makes sense to me.

As for the bankers, string them up.

Come on CAR stop holding the bankers as your hoop to jump through before addressing all the other state budget issues. I don’t think CA had a hand in TARP. So stop linking the two. They are two independent indiscretions that need to be dealt with independently.[/quote]

But what you seem to be missing is that they are NOT separate. One caused the losses of the other.

Why are these pensions guaranteed? Because that is what was agreed upon decades ago. Because that is what drew these employees to these jobs. Govt workers earned their benefits and negotiated for them in good faith. They’ve all given up other things (money, vacation, stipends, etc.) in exchange for their retirement benefits because they negotiate for their entire compensation package when they determine what to get and give up.

The reason these employees entered public service is often because of the benefits and relative security of the job. Public service is not like private enterprise, and the pay and benefits are not like those found in private enterprise. If they wanted to work in private industry, they would be doing so. Likewise, if you like the pay and benefits of the public sector, you should have applied for a job. Many of these employees left better paying jobs in the private sector for the stability of the public sector — and that includes the more stable pay/benefits during downturns. These public servants sacrificed during the good times. Now, as their choices are about to pay off, you think they should have those benefits taken away. Some people have a problem with that.

EVERYONE had the option to take those jobs, but decided to do something else, instead. It’s not an exclusive club (like it is in the financial sector). Public employers to go great lengths to ensure equal access to all qualified candidates. The notion that nobody else should get something just because you don’t doesn’t fly. YOU made the choice not to join a union, so don’t blame it on them when they get what they fought for over many, many years.

[CA renter]

[quote=jstoesz]Come on CAR…These goals are not mutually exclusive. Just because we bailed out the financials, which I was against from the start does not mean that we should avoid the public sector problem. They are completely unrelated as far as the burden to the taxpayer/state is concerned. Do them both, but if you can only politically do one, than do one! If I were faced with an either or decision, it would be to kill the bankers, but that is not my decision…unilaterally of course.

The public unions have to go. if it makes good economic sense to pay firemen outlandish wages, than it will be so (as you claim). An accountable, fiscally speaking, government will make it so. But the unions are not the ones we should be looking to for responsible wages. We should be looking to what the market can bear. And if the market determines that adequate pay for fireman is 1XXk per year than an accountable government can pay that. Maybe I live in a fantasy land, but that makes sense to me.

As for the bankers, string them up.

Come on CAR stop holding the bankers as your hoop to jump through before addressing all the other state budget issues. I don’t think CA had a hand in TARP. So stop linking the two. They are two independent indiscretions that need to be dealt with independently.[/quote]

But what you seem to be missing is that they are NOT separate. One caused the losses of the other.

Why are these pensions guaranteed? Because that is what was agreed upon decades ago. Because that is what drew these employees to these jobs. Govt workers earned their benefits and negotiated for them in good faith. They’ve all given up other things (money, vacation, stipends, etc.) in exchange for their retirement benefits because they negotiate for their entire compensation package when they determine what to get and give up.

The reason these employees entered public service is often because of the benefits and relative security of the job. Public service is not like private enterprise, and the pay and benefits are not like those found in private enterprise. If they wanted to work in private industry, they would be doing so. Likewise, if you like the pay and benefits of the public sector, you should have applied for a job. Many of these employees left better paying jobs in the private sector for the stability of the public sector — and that includes the more stable pay/benefits during downturns. These public servants sacrificed during the good times. Now, as their choices are about to pay off, you think they should have those benefits taken away. Some people have a problem with that.

EVERYONE had the option to take those jobs, but decided to do something else, instead. It’s not an exclusive club (like it is in the financial sector). Public employers to go great lengths to ensure equal access to all qualified candidates. The notion that nobody else should get something just because you don’t doesn’t fly. YOU made the choice not to join a union, so don’t blame it on them when they get what they fought for over many, many years.

[CA renter]

[quote=jstoesz]Come on CAR…These goals are not mutually exclusive. Just because we bailed out the financials, which I was against from the start does not mean that we should avoid the public sector problem. They are completely unrelated as far as the burden to the taxpayer/state is concerned. Do them both, but if you can only politically do one, than do one! If I were faced with an either or decision, it would be to kill the bankers, but that is not my decision…unilaterally of course.

The public unions have to go. if it makes good economic sense to pay firemen outlandish wages, than it will be so (as you claim). An accountable, fiscally speaking, government will make it so. But the unions are not the ones we should be looking to for responsible wages. We should be looking to what the market can bear. And if the market determines that adequate pay for fireman is 1XXk per year than an accountable government can pay that. Maybe I live in a fantasy land, but that makes sense to me.

As for the bankers, string them up.

Come on CAR stop holding the bankers as your hoop to jump through before addressing all the other state budget issues. I don’t think CA had a hand in TARP. So stop linking the two. They are two independent indiscretions that need to be dealt with independently.[/quote]

But what you seem to be missing is that they are NOT separate. One caused the losses of the other.

Why are these pensions guaranteed? Because that is what was agreed upon decades ago. Because that is what drew these employees to these jobs. Govt workers earned their benefits and negotiated for them in good faith. They’ve all given up other things (money, vacation, stipends, etc.) in exchange for their retirement benefits because they negotiate for their entire compensation package when they determine what to get and give up.

The reason these employees entered public service is often because of the benefits and relative security of the job. Public service is not like private enterprise, and the pay and benefits are not like those found in private enterprise. If they wanted to work in private industry, they would be doing so. Likewise, if you like the pay and benefits of the public sector, you should have applied for a job. Many of these employees left better paying jobs in the private sector for the stability of the public sector — and that includes the more stable pay/benefits during downturns. These public servants sacrificed during the good times. Now, as their choices are about to pay off, you think they should have those benefits taken away. Some people have a problem with that.

EVERYONE had the option to take those jobs, but decided to do something else, instead. It’s not an exclusive club (like it is in the financial sector). Public employers to go great lengths to ensure equal access to all qualified candidates. The notion that nobody else should get something just because you don’t doesn’t fly. YOU made the choice not to join a union, so don’t blame it on them when they get what they fought for over many, many years.

[CA renter]

[quote=jstoesz]Come on CAR…These goals are not mutually exclusive. Just because we bailed out the financials, which I was against from the start does not mean that we should avoid the public sector problem. They are completely unrelated as far as the burden to the taxpayer/state is concerned. Do them both, but if you can only politically do one, than do one! If I were faced with an either or decision, it would be to kill the bankers, but that is not my decision…unilaterally of course.

The public unions have to go. if it makes good economic sense to pay firemen outlandish wages, than it will be so (as you claim). An accountable, fiscally speaking, government will make it so. But the unions are not the ones we should be looking to for responsible wages. We should be looking to what the market can bear. And if the market determines that adequate pay for fireman is 1XXk per year than an accountable government can pay that. Maybe I live in a fantasy land, but that makes sense to me.

As for the bankers, string them up.

Come on CAR stop holding the bankers as your hoop to jump through before addressing all the other state budget issues. I don’t think CA had a hand in TARP. So stop linking the two. They are two independent indiscretions that need to be dealt with independently.[/quote]

But what you seem to be missing is that they are NOT separate. One caused the losses of the other.

Why are these pensions guaranteed? Because that is what was agreed upon decades ago. Because that is what drew these employees to these jobs. Govt workers earned their benefits and negotiated for them in good faith. They’ve all given up other things (money, vacation, stipends, etc.) in exchange for their retirement benefits because they negotiate for their entire compensation package when they determine what to get and give up.

The reason these employees entered public service is often because of the benefits and relative security of the job. Public service is not like private enterprise, and the pay and benefits are not like those found in private enterprise. If they wanted to work in private industry, they would be doing so. Likewise, if you like the pay and benefits of the public sector, you should have applied for a job. Many of these employees left better paying jobs in the private sector for the stability of the public sector — and that includes the more stable pay/benefits during downturns. These public servants sacrificed during the good times. Now, as their choices are about to pay off, you think they should have those benefits taken away. Some people have a problem with that.

EVERYONE had the option to take those jobs, but decided to do something else, instead. It’s not an exclusive club (like it is in the financial sector). Public employers to go great lengths to ensure equal access to all qualified candidates. The notion that nobody else should get something just because you don’t doesn’t fly. YOU made the choice not to join a union, so don’t blame it on them when they get what they fought for over many, many years.

[CA renter]

[quote=jstoesz]Come on CAR…These goals are not mutually exclusive. Just because we bailed out the financials, which I was against from the start does not mean that we should avoid the public sector problem. They are completely unrelated as far as the burden to the taxpayer/state is concerned. Do them both, but if you can only politically do one, than do one! If I were faced with an either or decision, it would be to kill the bankers, but that is not my decision…unilaterally of course.

The public unions have to go. if it makes good economic sense to pay firemen outlandish wages, than it will be so (as you claim). An accountable, fiscally speaking, government will make it so. But the unions are not the ones we should be looking to for responsible wages. We should be looking to what the market can bear. And if the market determines that adequate pay for fireman is 1XXk per year than an accountable government can pay that. Maybe I live in a fantasy land, but that makes sense to me.

As for the bankers, string them up.

Come on CAR stop holding the bankers as your hoop to jump through before addressing all the other state budget issues. I don’t think CA had a hand in TARP. So stop linking the two. They are two independent indiscretions that need to be dealt with independently.[/quote]

But what you seem to be missing is that they are NOT separate. One caused the losses of the other.

Why are these pensions guaranteed? Because that is what was agreed upon decades ago. Because that is what drew these employees to these jobs. Govt workers earned their benefits and negotiated for them in good faith. They’ve all given up other things (money, vacation, stipends, etc.) in exchange for their retirement benefits because they negotiate for their entire compensation package when they determine what to get and give up.

The reason these employees entered public service is often because of the benefits and relative security of the job. Public service is not like private enterprise, and the pay and benefits are not like those found in private enterprise. If they wanted to work in private industry, they would be doing so. Likewise, if you like the pay and benefits of the public sector, you should have applied for a job. Many of these employees left better paying jobs in the private sector for the stability of the public sector — and that includes the more stable pay/benefits during downturns. These public servants sacrificed during the good times. Now, as their choices are about to pay off, you think they should have those benefits taken away. Some people have a problem with that.

EVERYONE had the option to take those jobs, but decided to do something else, instead. It’s not an exclusive club (like it is in the financial sector). Public employers to go great lengths to ensure equal access to all qualified candidates. The notion that nobody else should get something just because you don’t doesn’t fly. YOU made the choice not to join a union, so don’t blame it on them when they get what they fought for over many, many years.

[CA renter]

BTW, you might enjoy this, Brian. It discusses the need to limit spending increases to population growth plus inflation. One thing to consider, though, is that the way we measure CPI has changed. If we were to use the old CPI methodology (which would have shown much higher inflation in the 1990-2008/2009 period), was our spending really out of whack?

http://reason.org/files/a2ec7caccc5d660e870c4a21526ef5f8.pdf

What changes have caused our spending to rise so high?

Having worked in public education, I would contend that a big portion of these increased expenditures have to do with illegal immigration. A huge portion of our budget (~40%, IIRC) is allocated to education (prisons, healthcare, and “welfare” accounts for most of the rest, and these are also highly impacted by illegal immigration). You can’t discuss the budget without delving into the details.

FWIW, here is one account that says we are not overspending, based on population growth and inflation:

“Analyzing the 2008-09 budget bill last year, the legislative analyst determined that since 1998-99, spending in the general fund and state special funds — the latter comes from special levies like gasoline and tobacco taxes — had risen to $128.8 billion from $72.6 billion, or 77%.

During this time frame, which embraced two booms (dot-com and housing) and two busts (ditto), the state’s population grew about 30% to about 38 million, and inflation charged ahead by 50%. The budget’s growth, the legislative analyst found, exceeded these factors by only an average of 0.2% a year.

My calculations show that the combined growth factors would have allowed the budget to grow even more. But for the purpose of argument, let’s use the legislative analyst’s more conservative number. That punctures the notion that the state has been on a drunken spending spree out of proportion to these common multipliers.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/28/business/fi-hiltzik28
—————–

Here’s what’s been happening to our population since 1990. This is from 1996:

For the first time in 200 years, a non-white group contributed more to annual population increase than non-Hispanic whites. According to the Census report, “U.S. Population Estimates by Age, Sex, Race and Hispanic Origin: 1990-1995,” in 1993-94, the US Hispanic population increased by 902,000, and the non-Hispanic white population increased by 883,000.

The US population is expected to increase by 2.4 million per year, from 263 million in 1995 to 394 million in 2050. Fueled by immigration–the Census assumed a net influx of 820,000 legal and illegal immigrants annually– and births to immigrants, the Hispanic and Asian populations in the US are expected to grow by over three percent per year, faster than the growth of Mexico’s population in 1995, which was 2.2 percent per year. The white population is projected to increase by about 0.4 percent per year.

There are about 24 million foreign-born persons in the US–immigrants who moved to the US from other countries are about nine percent of all US residents. Most are in the US legally, the number of unauthorized aliens in the US is believed to be about four million. About 75 percent of the legal immigrants, and 85 percent of the unauthorized aliens, are believed to be in six states–California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois.

Many of the welfare programs being debated in Congress aim to prevent children from growing up poor. According to a recent Government Accounting Office review of census data, about 17 percent of the school-aged children (five through 17) were living in households with below poverty-level incomes in 1990–some 7.6 million children.

However, 31 percent of the school-aged children in households headed by immigrants lived in poverty– 709,000– including 43 percent of the children in households headed by an immigrant from Mexico–299,000–and 40 percent of the children in households headed by an immigrant from Vietnam–46,700.

[As a sidenote, I thought this quote was oddly funny; as if households with 3-4 incomes could be considered “middle class” in America]:

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan predicted that, “in 15 years, Los Angeles will again be a town with a strong middle class, mainly Latinos and Asians. They will make relatively less money than the average middle-class citizen today, but there will be more houses with two, three or four wage-earners.”

http://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/more.php?id=919_0_2_0
——————

Let me explain why this makes a difference. In the school where I worked, we had a 90%+ Hispanic population, with many (most, from what I could tell, but you’re not allowed to ask, by law) of those students were either illegal immigrants or children of illegal immigrants. Note: most of the kids were sweeter than most American kids I know, and their parents were some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. It’s not about “immigrant bashing,” it’s about an honest account of our state’s resources, and how we have to allocate them.

Anyway, we were a Title I/Chapter I school, and got extra funding from the federal government and the state. The majority of schools that serve the illegal immigrant communities qualify for this extra funding, while most of the schools in California that serve “traditional” U.S. citizens (not of illegal parents) do not qualify for this funding.

Our school had a full-time nurse, full-time P.E. teacher, full-time psychologist, full-time bilingual coordinator, full time attendance coordinator, full-time librarian, two-three assistant principals, three full-time secretaries, etc. “Normal” schools are lucky to have one F/T secretary and a part-time nurse. All the other positions have to be paid for by the PTA (parent-funded), IF they get it, in “normal” schools.

We also got all the latest and greatest as far as school supplies, and WERE NOT ALLOWED to ask parents to supply anything at all — no pencils, paper, paint, scissors, etc. The taxpayers provided everything, and then some. In “normal” schools, most of these daily supplies are teacher or parent-funded.

Our school had multiple copy/fax machines, laminators, etc. One of the schools I had worked for in a “better” neighborhood had to hold a fundraiser to buy a copy machine.

So many of our students qualified for free breakfast and lunch that it cost them more to collect the tickets (for qualified breakfast/lunch recipients) than it was to feed everyone, so they just went to 100% free breakfasts and lunches. We were a year-round school, so these meals were being served every day, with the exception of two weeks between Christmas and New Year.

Every classroom also had either a full-time or part-time (half-day) T.A. Every one. Good luck with that in a “normal” school.

We had two sets of learning material (you have no idea how expensive all the textbooks, workbooks, manipulatives, etc. are) — one in English, and one in Spanish for many of the bilingual classes. We got new books almost every year. We had a state-of-the-art computer lab, and anything you could ever want. It took years before the “normal” schools got these things.

And then there was the extra stipend for bilingual teachers. I think they eliminated it, but heard again that they might have gotten it back (I’ve been out for over 10 years).

These are just a few things off the top of my head. Until we are able to have an honest discussion about the costs involved with illegal immigration, we will not be able to tackle our budget problems.

Some interesting reading about the topic:

http://www.urban.org/publications/305184.html

This one has to do with “ZPG/NPG,” which you ought to like:

http://www.npg.org/CAPS.html

[CA renter]

BTW, you might enjoy this, Brian. It discusses the need to limit spending increases to population growth plus inflation. One thing to consider, though, is that the way we measure CPI has changed. If we were to use the old CPI methodology (which would have shown much higher inflation in the 1990-2008/2009 period), was our spending really out of whack?

http://reason.org/files/a2ec7caccc5d660e870c4a21526ef5f8.pdf

What changes have caused our spending to rise so high?

Having worked in public education, I would contend that a big portion of these increased expenditures have to do with illegal immigration. A huge portion of our budget (~40%, IIRC) is allocated to education (prisons, healthcare, and “welfare” accounts for most of the rest, and these are also highly impacted by illegal immigration). You can’t discuss the budget without delving into the details.

FWIW, here is one account that says we are not overspending, based on population growth and inflation:

“Analyzing the 2008-09 budget bill last year, the legislative analyst determined that since 1998-99, spending in the general fund and state special funds — the latter comes from special levies like gasoline and tobacco taxes — had risen to $128.8 billion from $72.6 billion, or 77%.

During this time frame, which embraced two booms (dot-com and housing) and two busts (ditto), the state’s population grew about 30% to about 38 million, and inflation charged ahead by 50%. The budget’s growth, the legislative analyst found, exceeded these factors by only an average of 0.2% a year.

My calculations show that the combined growth factors would have allowed the budget to grow even more. But for the purpose of argument, let’s use the legislative analyst’s more conservative number. That punctures the notion that the state has been on a drunken spending spree out of proportion to these common multipliers.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/28/business/fi-hiltzik28
—————–

Here’s what’s been happening to our population since 1990. This is from 1996:

For the first time in 200 years, a non-white group contributed more to annual population increase than non-Hispanic whites. According to the Census report, “U.S. Population Estimates by Age, Sex, Race and Hispanic Origin: 1990-1995,” in 1993-94, the US Hispanic population increased by 902,000, and the non-Hispanic white population increased by 883,000.

The US population is expected to increase by 2.4 million per year, from 263 million in 1995 to 394 million in 2050. Fueled by immigration–the Census assumed a net influx of 820,000 legal and illegal immigrants annually– and births to immigrants, the Hispanic and Asian populations in the US are expected to grow by over three percent per year, faster than the growth of Mexico’s population in 1995, which was 2.2 percent per year. The white population is projected to increase by about 0.4 percent per year.

There are about 24 million foreign-born persons in the US–immigrants who moved to the US from other countries are about nine percent of all US residents. Most are in the US legally, the number of unauthorized aliens in the US is believed to be about four million. About 75 percent of the legal immigrants, and 85 percent of the unauthorized aliens, are believed to be in six states–California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois.

Many of the welfare programs being debated in Congress aim to prevent children from growing up poor. According to a recent Government Accounting Office review of census data, about 17 percent of the school-aged children (five through 17) were living in households with below poverty-level incomes in 1990–some 7.6 million children.

However, 31 percent of the school-aged children in households headed by immigrants lived in poverty– 709,000– including 43 percent of the children in households headed by an immigrant from Mexico–299,000–and 40 percent of the children in households headed by an immigrant from Vietnam–46,700.

[As a sidenote, I thought this quote was oddly funny; as if households with 3-4 incomes could be considered “middle class” in America]:

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan predicted that, “in 15 years, Los Angeles will again be a town with a strong middle class, mainly Latinos and Asians. They will make relatively less money than the average middle-class citizen today, but there will be more houses with two, three or four wage-earners.”

http://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/more.php?id=919_0_2_0
——————

Let me explain why this makes a difference. In the school where I worked, we had a 90%+ Hispanic population, with many (most, from what I could tell, but you’re not allowed to ask, by law) of those students were either illegal immigrants or children of illegal immigrants. Note: most of the kids were sweeter than most American kids I know, and their parents were some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. It’s not about “immigrant bashing,” it’s about an honest account of our state’s resources, and how we have to allocate them.

Anyway, we were a Title I/Chapter I school, and got extra funding from the federal government and the state. The majority of schools that serve the illegal immigrant communities qualify for this extra funding, while most of the schools in California that serve “traditional” U.S. citizens (not of illegal parents) do not qualify for this funding.

Our school had a full-time nurse, full-time P.E. teacher, full-time psychologist, full-time bilingual coordinator, full time attendance coordinator, full-time librarian, two-three assistant principals, three full-time secretaries, etc. “Normal” schools are lucky to have one F/T secretary and a part-time nurse. All the other positions have to be paid for by the PTA (parent-funded), IF they get it, in “normal” schools.

We also got all the latest and greatest as far as school supplies, and WERE NOT ALLOWED to ask parents to supply anything at all — no pencils, paper, paint, scissors, etc. The taxpayers provided everything, and then some. In “normal” schools, most of these daily supplies are teacher or parent-funded.

Our school had multiple copy/fax machines, laminators, etc. One of the schools I had worked for in a “better” neighborhood had to hold a fundraiser to buy a copy machine.

So many of our students qualified for free breakfast and lunch that it cost them more to collect the tickets (for qualified breakfast/lunch recipients) than it was to feed everyone, so they just went to 100% free breakfasts and lunches. We were a year-round school, so these meals were being served every day, with the exception of two weeks between Christmas and New Year.

Every classroom also had either a full-time or part-time (half-day) T.A. Every one. Good luck with that in a “normal” school.

We had two sets of learning material (you have no idea how expensive all the textbooks, workbooks, manipulatives, etc. are) — one in English, and one in Spanish for many of the bilingual classes. We got new books almost every year. We had a state-of-the-art computer lab, and anything you could ever want. It took years before the “normal” schools got these things.

And then there was the extra stipend for bilingual teachers. I think they eliminated it, but heard again that they might have gotten it back (I’ve been out for over 10 years).

These are just a few things off the top of my head. Until we are able to have an honest discussion about the costs involved with illegal immigration, we will not be able to tackle our budget problems.

Some interesting reading about the topic:

http://www.urban.org/publications/305184.html

This one has to do with “ZPG/NPG,” which you ought to like:

http://www.npg.org/CAPS.html

[CA renter]

BTW, you might enjoy this, Brian. It discusses the need to limit spending increases to population growth plus inflation. One thing to consider, though, is that the way we measure CPI has changed. If we were to use the old CPI methodology (which would have shown much higher inflation in the 1990-2008/2009 period), was our spending really out of whack?

http://reason.org/files/a2ec7caccc5d660e870c4a21526ef5f8.pdf

What changes have caused our spending to rise so high?

Having worked in public education, I would contend that a big portion of these increased expenditures have to do with illegal immigration. A huge portion of our budget (~40%, IIRC) is allocated to education (prisons, healthcare, and “welfare” accounts for most of the rest, and these are also highly impacted by illegal immigration). You can’t discuss the budget without delving into the details.

FWIW, here is one account that says we are not overspending, based on population growth and inflation:

“Analyzing the 2008-09 budget bill last year, the legislative analyst determined that since 1998-99, spending in the general fund and state special funds — the latter comes from special levies like gasoline and tobacco taxes — had risen to $128.8 billion from $72.6 billion, or 77%.

During this time frame, which embraced two booms (dot-com and housing) and two busts (ditto), the state’s population grew about 30% to about 38 million, and inflation charged ahead by 50%. The budget’s growth, the legislative analyst found, exceeded these factors by only an average of 0.2% a year.

My calculations show that the combined growth factors would have allowed the budget to grow even more. But for the purpose of argument, let’s use the legislative analyst’s more conservative number. That punctures the notion that the state has been on a drunken spending spree out of proportion to these common multipliers.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/28/business/fi-hiltzik28
—————–

Here’s what’s been happening to our population since 1990. This is from 1996:

For the first time in 200 years, a non-white group contributed more to annual population increase than non-Hispanic whites. According to the Census report, “U.S. Population Estimates by Age, Sex, Race and Hispanic Origin: 1990-1995,” in 1993-94, the US Hispanic population increased by 902,000, and the non-Hispanic white population increased by 883,000.

The US population is expected to increase by 2.4 million per year, from 263 million in 1995 to 394 million in 2050. Fueled by immigration–the Census assumed a net influx of 820,000 legal and illegal immigrants annually– and births to immigrants, the Hispanic and Asian populations in the US are expected to grow by over three percent per year, faster than the growth of Mexico’s population in 1995, which was 2.2 percent per year. The white population is projected to increase by about 0.4 percent per year.

There are about 24 million foreign-born persons in the US–immigrants who moved to the US from other countries are about nine percent of all US residents. Most are in the US legally, the number of unauthorized aliens in the US is believed to be about four million. About 75 percent of the legal immigrants, and 85 percent of the unauthorized aliens, are believed to be in six states–California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois.

Many of the welfare programs being debated in Congress aim to prevent children from growing up poor. According to a recent Government Accounting Office review of census data, about 17 percent of the school-aged children (five through 17) were living in households with below poverty-level incomes in 1990–some 7.6 million children.

However, 31 percent of the school-aged children in households headed by immigrants lived in poverty– 709,000– including 43 percent of the children in households headed by an immigrant from Mexico–299,000–and 40 percent of the children in households headed by an immigrant from Vietnam–46,700.

[As a sidenote, I thought this quote was oddly funny; as if households with 3-4 incomes could be considered “middle class” in America]:

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan predicted that, “in 15 years, Los Angeles will again be a town with a strong middle class, mainly Latinos and Asians. They will make relatively less money than the average middle-class citizen today, but there will be more houses with two, three or four wage-earners.”

http://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/more.php?id=919_0_2_0
——————

Let me explain why this makes a difference. In the school where I worked, we had a 90%+ Hispanic population, with many (most, from what I could tell, but you’re not allowed to ask, by law) of those students were either illegal immigrants or children of illegal immigrants. Note: most of the kids were sweeter than most American kids I know, and their parents were some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. It’s not about “immigrant bashing,” it’s about an honest account of our state’s resources, and how we have to allocate them.

Anyway, we were a Title I/Chapter I school, and got extra funding from the federal government and the state. The majority of schools that serve the illegal immigrant communities qualify for this extra funding, while most of the schools in California that serve “traditional” U.S. citizens (not of illegal parents) do not qualify for this funding.

Our school had a full-time nurse, full-time P.E. teacher, full-time psychologist, full-time bilingual coordinator, full time attendance coordinator, full-time librarian, two-three assistant principals, three full-time secretaries, etc. “Normal” schools are lucky to have one F/T secretary and a part-time nurse. All the other positions have to be paid for by the PTA (parent-funded), IF they get it, in “normal” schools.

We also got all the latest and greatest as far as school supplies, and WERE NOT ALLOWED to ask parents to supply anything at all — no pencils, paper, paint, scissors, etc. The taxpayers provided everything, and then some. In “normal” schools, most of these daily supplies are teacher or parent-funded.

Our school had multiple copy/fax machines, laminators, etc. One of the schools I had worked for in a “better” neighborhood had to hold a fundraiser to buy a copy machine.

So many of our students qualified for free breakfast and lunch that it cost them more to collect the tickets (for qualified breakfast/lunch recipients) than it was to feed everyone, so they just went to 100% free breakfasts and lunches. We were a year-round school, so these meals were being served every day, with the exception of two weeks between Christmas and New Year.

Every classroom also had either a full-time or part-time (half-day) T.A. Every one. Good luck with that in a “normal” school.

We had two sets of learning material (you have no idea how expensive all the textbooks, workbooks, manipulatives, etc. are) — one in English, and one in Spanish for many of the bilingual classes. We got new books almost every year. We had a state-of-the-art computer lab, and anything you could ever want. It took years before the “normal” schools got these things.

And then there was the extra stipend for bilingual teachers. I think they eliminated it, but heard again that they might have gotten it back (I’ve been out for over 10 years).

These are just a few things off the top of my head. Until we are able to have an honest discussion about the costs involved with illegal immigration, we will not be able to tackle our budget problems.

Some interesting reading about the topic:

http://www.urban.org/publications/305184.html

This one has to do with “ZPG/NPG,” which you ought to like:

http://www.npg.org/CAPS.html

[CA renter]

BTW, you might enjoy this, Brian. It discusses the need to limit spending increases to population growth plus inflation. One thing to consider, though, is that the way we measure CPI has changed. If we were to use the old CPI methodology (which would have shown much higher inflation in the 1990-2008/2009 period), was our spending really out of whack?

http://reason.org/files/a2ec7caccc5d660e870c4a21526ef5f8.pdf

What changes have caused our spending to rise so high?

Having worked in public education, I would contend that a big portion of these increased expenditures have to do with illegal immigration. A huge portion of our budget (~40%, IIRC) is allocated to education (prisons, healthcare, and “welfare” accounts for most of the rest, and these are also highly impacted by illegal immigration). You can’t discuss the budget without delving into the details.

FWIW, here is one account that says we are not overspending, based on population growth and inflation:

“Analyzing the 2008-09 budget bill last year, the legislative analyst determined that since 1998-99, spending in the general fund and state special funds — the latter comes from special levies like gasoline and tobacco taxes — had risen to $128.8 billion from $72.6 billion, or 77%.

During this time frame, which embraced two booms (dot-com and housing) and two busts (ditto), the state’s population grew about 30% to about 38 million, and inflation charged ahead by 50%. The budget’s growth, the legislative analyst found, exceeded these factors by only an average of 0.2% a year.

My calculations show that the combined growth factors would have allowed the budget to grow even more. But for the purpose of argument, let’s use the legislative analyst’s more conservative number. That punctures the notion that the state has been on a drunken spending spree out of proportion to these common multipliers.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/28/business/fi-hiltzik28
—————–

Here’s what’s been happening to our population since 1990. This is from 1996:

For the first time in 200 years, a non-white group contributed more to annual population increase than non-Hispanic whites. According to the Census report, “U.S. Population Estimates by Age, Sex, Race and Hispanic Origin: 1990-1995,” in 1993-94, the US Hispanic population increased by 902,000, and the non-Hispanic white population increased by 883,000.

The US population is expected to increase by 2.4 million per year, from 263 million in 1995 to 394 million in 2050. Fueled by immigration–the Census assumed a net influx of 820,000 legal and illegal immigrants annually– and births to immigrants, the Hispanic and Asian populations in the US are expected to grow by over three percent per year, faster than the growth of Mexico’s population in 1995, which was 2.2 percent per year. The white population is projected to increase by about 0.4 percent per year.

There are about 24 million foreign-born persons in the US–immigrants who moved to the US from other countries are about nine percent of all US residents. Most are in the US legally, the number of unauthorized aliens in the US is believed to be about four million. About 75 percent of the legal immigrants, and 85 percent of the unauthorized aliens, are believed to be in six states–California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois.

Many of the welfare programs being debated in Congress aim to prevent children from growing up poor. According to a recent Government Accounting Office review of census data, about 17 percent of the school-aged children (five through 17) were living in households with below poverty-level incomes in 1990–some 7.6 million children.

However, 31 percent of the school-aged children in households headed by immigrants lived in poverty– 709,000– including 43 percent of the children in households headed by an immigrant from Mexico–299,000–and 40 percent of the children in households headed by an immigrant from Vietnam–46,700.

[As a sidenote, I thought this quote was oddly funny; as if households with 3-4 incomes could be considered “middle class” in America]:

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan predicted that, “in 15 years, Los Angeles will again be a town with a strong middle class, mainly Latinos and Asians. They will make relatively less money than the average middle-class citizen today, but there will be more houses with two, three or four wage-earners.”

http://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/more.php?id=919_0_2_0
——————

Let me explain why this makes a difference. In the school where I worked, we had a 90%+ Hispanic population, with many (most, from what I could tell, but you’re not allowed to ask, by law) of those students were either illegal immigrants or children of illegal immigrants. Note: most of the kids were sweeter than most American kids I know, and their parents were some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. It’s not about “immigrant bashing,” it’s about an honest account of our state’s resources, and how we have to allocate them.

Anyway, we were a Title I/Chapter I school, and got extra funding from the federal government and the state. The majority of schools that serve the illegal immigrant communities qualify for this extra funding, while most of the schools in California that serve “traditional” U.S. citizens (not of illegal parents) do not qualify for this funding.

Our school had a full-time nurse, full-time P.E. teacher, full-time psychologist, full-time bilingual coordinator, full time attendance coordinator, full-time librarian, two-three assistant principals, three full-time secretaries, etc. “Normal” schools are lucky to have one F/T secretary and a part-time nurse. All the other positions have to be paid for by the PTA (parent-funded), IF they get it, in “normal” schools.

We also got all the latest and greatest as far as school supplies, and WERE NOT ALLOWED to ask parents to supply anything at all — no pencils, paper, paint, scissors, etc. The taxpayers provided everything, and then some. In “normal” schools, most of these daily supplies are teacher or parent-funded.

Our school had multiple copy/fax machines, laminators, etc. One of the schools I had worked for in a “better” neighborhood had to hold a fundraiser to buy a copy machine.

So many of our students qualified for free breakfast and lunch that it cost them more to collect the tickets (for qualified breakfast/lunch recipients) than it was to feed everyone, so they just went to 100% free breakfasts and lunches. We were a year-round school, so these meals were being served every day, with the exception of two weeks between Christmas and New Year.

Every classroom also had either a full-time or part-time (half-day) T.A. Every one. Good luck with that in a “normal” school.

We had two sets of learning material (you have no idea how expensive all the textbooks, workbooks, manipulatives, etc. are) — one in English, and one in Spanish for many of the bilingual classes. We got new books almost every year. We had a state-of-the-art computer lab, and anything you could ever want. It took years before the “normal” schools got these things.

And then there was the extra stipend for bilingual teachers. I think they eliminated it, but heard again that they might have gotten it back (I’ve been out for over 10 years).

These are just a few things off the top of my head. Until we are able to have an honest discussion about the costs involved with illegal immigration, we will not be able to tackle our budget problems.

Some interesting reading about the topic:

http://www.urban.org/publications/305184.html

This one has to do with “ZPG/NPG,” which you ought to like:

http://www.npg.org/CAPS.html

[CA renter]

BTW, you might enjoy this, Brian. It discusses the need to limit spending increases to population growth plus inflation. One thing to consider, though, is that the way we measure CPI has changed. If we were to use the old CPI methodology (which would have shown much higher inflation in the 1990-2008/2009 period), was our spending really out of whack?

http://reason.org/files/a2ec7caccc5d660e870c4a21526ef5f8.pdf

What changes have caused our spending to rise so high?

Having worked in public education, I would contend that a big portion of these increased expenditures have to do with illegal immigration. A huge portion of our budget (~40%, IIRC) is allocated to education (prisons, healthcare, and “welfare” accounts for most of the rest, and these are also highly impacted by illegal immigration). You can’t discuss the budget without delving into the details.

FWIW, here is one account that says we are not overspending, based on population growth and inflation:

“Analyzing the 2008-09 budget bill last year, the legislative analyst determined that since 1998-99, spending in the general fund and state special funds — the latter comes from special levies like gasoline and tobacco taxes — had risen to $128.8 billion from $72.6 billion, or 77%.

During this time frame, which embraced two booms (dot-com and housing) and two busts (ditto), the state’s population grew about 30% to about 38 million, and inflation charged ahead by 50%. The budget’s growth, the legislative analyst found, exceeded these factors by only an average of 0.2% a year.

My calculations show that the combined growth factors would have allowed the budget to grow even more. But for the purpose of argument, let’s use the legislative analyst’s more conservative number. That punctures the notion that the state has been on a drunken spending spree out of proportion to these common multipliers.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/28/business/fi-hiltzik28
—————–

Here’s what’s been happening to our population since 1990. This is from 1996:

For the first time in 200 years, a non-white group contributed more to annual population increase than non-Hispanic whites. According to the Census report, “U.S. Population Estimates by Age, Sex, Race and Hispanic Origin: 1990-1995,” in 1993-94, the US Hispanic population increased by 902,000, and the non-Hispanic white population increased by 883,000.

The US population is expected to increase by 2.4 million per year, from 263 million in 1995 to 394 million in 2050. Fueled by immigration–the Census assumed a net influx of 820,000 legal and illegal immigrants annually– and births to immigrants, the Hispanic and Asian populations in the US are expected to grow by over three percent per year, faster than the growth of Mexico’s population in 1995, which was 2.2 percent per year. The white population is projected to increase by about 0.4 percent per year.

There are about 24 million foreign-born persons in the US–immigrants who moved to the US from other countries are about nine percent of all US residents. Most are in the US legally, the number of unauthorized aliens in the US is believed to be about four million. About 75 percent of the legal immigrants, and 85 percent of the unauthorized aliens, are believed to be in six states–California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois.

Many of the welfare programs being debated in Congress aim to prevent children from growing up poor. According to a recent Government Accounting Office review of census data, about 17 percent of the school-aged children (five through 17) were living in households with below poverty-level incomes in 1990–some 7.6 million children.

However, 31 percent of the school-aged children in households headed by immigrants lived in poverty– 709,000– including 43 percent of the children in households headed by an immigrant from Mexico–299,000–and 40 percent of the children in households headed by an immigrant from Vietnam–46,700.

[As a sidenote, I thought this quote was oddly funny; as if households with 3-4 incomes could be considered “middle class” in America]:

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan predicted that, “in 15 years, Los Angeles will again be a town with a strong middle class, mainly Latinos and Asians. They will make relatively less money than the average middle-class citizen today, but there will be more houses with two, three or four wage-earners.”

http://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/more.php?id=919_0_2_0
——————

Let me explain why this makes a difference. In the school where I worked, we had a 90%+ Hispanic population, with many (most, from what I could tell, but you’re not allowed to ask, by law) of those students were either illegal immigrants or children of illegal immigrants. Note: most of the kids were sweeter than most American kids I know, and their parents were some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. It’s not about “immigrant bashing,” it’s about an honest account of our state’s resources, and how we have to allocate them.

Anyway, we were a Title I/Chapter I school, and got extra funding from the federal government and the state. The majority of schools that serve the illegal immigrant communities qualify for this extra funding, while most of the schools in California that serve “traditional” U.S. citizens (not of illegal parents) do not qualify for this funding.

Our school had a full-time nurse, full-time P.E. teacher, full-time psychologist, full-time bilingual coordinator, full time attendance coordinator, full-time librarian, two-three assistant principals, three full-time secretaries, etc. “Normal” schools are lucky to have one F/T secretary and a part-time nurse. All the other positions have to be paid for by the PTA (parent-funded), IF they get it, in “normal” schools.

We also got all the latest and greatest as far as school supplies, and WERE NOT ALLOWED to ask parents to supply anything at all — no pencils, paper, paint, scissors, etc. The taxpayers provided everything, and then some. In “normal” schools, most of these daily supplies are teacher or parent-funded.

Our school had multiple copy/fax machines, laminators, etc. One of the schools I had worked for in a “better” neighborhood had to hold a fundraiser to buy a copy machine.

So many of our students qualified for free breakfast and lunch that it cost them more to collect the tickets (for qualified breakfast/lunch recipients) than it was to feed everyone, so they just went to 100% free breakfasts and lunches. We were a year-round school, so these meals were being served every day, with the exception of two weeks between Christmas and New Year.

Every classroom also had either a full-time or part-time (half-day) T.A. Every one. Good luck with that in a “normal” school.

We had two sets of learning material (you have no idea how expensive all the textbooks, workbooks, manipulatives, etc. are) — one in English, and one in Spanish for many of the bilingual classes. We got new books almost every year. We had a state-of-the-art computer lab, and anything you could ever want. It took years before the “normal” schools got these things.

And then there was the extra stipend for bilingual teachers. I think they eliminated it, but heard again that they might have gotten it back (I’ve been out for over 10 years).

These are just a few things off the top of my head. Until we are able to have an honest discussion about the costs involved with illegal immigration, we will not be able to tackle our budget problems.

Some interesting reading about the topic:

http://www.urban.org/publications/305184.html

This one has to do with “ZPG/NPG,” which you ought to like:

http://www.npg.org/CAPS.html

[Arraya]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=briansd1]
As a society, we greatly bene
Brian: I’m as much of a money-grubbing capitalist as the next guy, but I’d also be the first to say that Wall Street has fundamentally failed in its primary mission: The proper allocation of capital to profit-making ventures.

.[/quote]

I think they may just have a morphing mission, in a sense. For example, the global economy has been growing, on average, about 2.25% per year, for the past 150 years. Which means, they need to find more and more profit-making ventures every year. Well, to put very simply, It’s been getting more difficult since the 70’s to find new ventures because of the bigger and bigger pools of capital along with some other trends. After 150 years of industrialization, how many more “needs” can they come up with for us rational utility maximizers to rationally utilize. “Security” has been one of the bigger new ventures of the past decade. Not actually a need we really want to have. It, actually, surpassed alternative energies in venture capital. Something we desperately need.

Now, personally, I think we are at a major inflection point in economic understanding. To me all the typical political discussions are very shallow. I think modern economics has some major blind spots, false assumptions and negative attributes that economists deal with through, either, flat out denial or some tautological response and this will come front and center in the coming years. I also think the institution is completely ossified, which makes things worse. But, I digress, this is another discussion all together.

[Arraya]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=briansd1]
As a society, we greatly bene
Brian: I’m as much of a money-grubbing capitalist as the next guy, but I’d also be the first to say that Wall Street has fundamentally failed in its primary mission: The proper allocation of capital to profit-making ventures.

.[/quote]

I think they may just have a morphing mission, in a sense. For example, the global economy has been growing, on average, about 2.25% per year, for the past 150 years. Which means, they need to find more and more profit-making ventures every year. Well, to put very simply, It’s been getting more difficult since the 70’s to find new ventures because of the bigger and bigger pools of capital along with some other trends. After 150 years of industrialization, how many more “needs” can they come up with for us rational utility maximizers to rationally utilize. “Security” has been one of the bigger new ventures of the past decade. Not actually a need we really want to have. It, actually, surpassed alternative energies in venture capital. Something we desperately need.

Now, personally, I think we are at a major inflection point in economic understanding. To me all the typical political discussions are very shallow. I think modern economics has some major blind spots, false assumptions and negative attributes that economists deal with through, either, flat out denial or some tautological response and this will come front and center in the coming years. I also think the institution is completely ossified, which makes things worse. But, I digress, this is another discussion all together.

[Arraya]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=briansd1]
As a society, we greatly bene
Brian: I’m as much of a money-grubbing capitalist as the next guy, but I’d also be the first to say that Wall Street has fundamentally failed in its primary mission: The proper allocation of capital to profit-making ventures.

.[/quote]

I think they may just have a morphing mission, in a sense. For example, the global economy has been growing, on average, about 2.25% per year, for the past 150 years. Which means, they need to find more and more profit-making ventures every year. Well, to put very simply, It’s been getting more difficult since the 70’s to find new ventures because of the bigger and bigger pools of capital along with some other trends. After 150 years of industrialization, how many more “needs” can they come up with for us rational utility maximizers to rationally utilize. “Security” has been one of the bigger new ventures of the past decade. Not actually a need we really want to have. It, actually, surpassed alternative energies in venture capital. Something we desperately need.

Now, personally, I think we are at a major inflection point in economic understanding. To me all the typical political discussions are very shallow. I think modern economics has some major blind spots, false assumptions and negative attributes that economists deal with through, either, flat out denial or some tautological response and this will come front and center in the coming years. I also think the institution is completely ossified, which makes things worse. But, I digress, this is another discussion all together.

[Arraya]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=briansd1]
As a society, we greatly bene
Brian: I’m as much of a money-grubbing capitalist as the next guy, but I’d also be the first to say that Wall Street has fundamentally failed in its primary mission: The proper allocation of capital to profit-making ventures.

.[/quote]

I think they may just have a morphing mission, in a sense. For example, the global economy has been growing, on average, about 2.25% per year, for the past 150 years. Which means, they need to find more and more profit-making ventures every year. Well, to put very simply, It’s been getting more difficult since the 70’s to find new ventures because of the bigger and bigger pools of capital along with some other trends. After 150 years of industrialization, how many more “needs” can they come up with for us rational utility maximizers to rationally utilize. “Security” has been one of the bigger new ventures of the past decade. Not actually a need we really want to have. It, actually, surpassed alternative energies in venture capital. Something we desperately need.

Now, personally, I think we are at a major inflection point in economic understanding. To me all the typical political discussions are very shallow. I think modern economics has some major blind spots, false assumptions and negative attributes that economists deal with through, either, flat out denial or some tautological response and this will come front and center in the coming years. I also think the institution is completely ossified, which makes things worse. But, I digress, this is another discussion all together.

[Author]

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