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paramount
ParticipantBankers and Wars
Like peanut butter and jelly.
ParticipantHere is the final answer:
An iPod Touch (8GB)
Less than $200, basically a hand held computer and entertainment system without monthly charges.
And yet, it does basically everything an iPhone does, but for free.
ParticipantLet’s not be distracted by those who inordinately benefit from our inordinate taxes, let’s get it on the ballot:
(It’s gaining momentum)
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/11/02/2254976/california-pension-reform-group.html
Participant[quote=bearishgurl]
All this “plundering talk” is obviously coming from half-cocked ignoramuses.[/quote]No, it’s coming from those of us who are more than fed up with getting fleeced by gov’t workers.
ParticipantPlundering California
Their pay levels are soaring, they enjoy unmatched benefits, and they remain largely immune from layoffs, except for some overly publicized cutbacks around the margins.
To make matters worse, government employees—thanks largely to the power of their unions—have carved out special protections that exempt them from many of the rules that other working Americans must live by. California has been on the cutting edge of this dangerous trend, which has essentially turned government employees into a special class of citizens.
When I recently appeared on Glenn Beck’s TV show to discuss California’s dreadful fiscal situation, I mentioned that in Orange County, where I had been a columnist for the Orange County Register, the average pay and benefits package for firefighters was $175,000 per year. After the show, I heard from viewers who couldn’t believe the figure, but it’s true.Firefighters, like all public-safety officials in California, also receive a gold-plated retirement plan: a defined-benefit annual pension that offers 90 percent or more of the worker’s final year’s pay, guaranteed for the rest of his life (and the life of his spouse).
Government employees use various scams to boost their already generous benefits, which include fully paid health care and cost-of-living adjustments. The Sacramento Bee coined the term “chief’s disease,” for example, to refer to the 82 percent (in 2002) of chief’s-level employees at the California Highway Patrol who discovered a disabling injury about one year before retiring. That provides an extra year off work, with pay, and shields 50 percent of their final retirement pay from taxes. Most of these disabilities stem from back pain, knee pain, irritable bowel syndrome, and the like—not from taking bullets from bad guys. The disability numbers soared after CHP disbanded its fraud unit.
As I document in my new book, Plunder!, government employees of all stripes have manipulated the system to spike their pensions. Because California bases pensions for employees on their final year’s salary, some workers move to other jurisdictions for just that final year to increase their pay and thus the pension. Even government employees convicted of on-the-job crimes continue to collect benefits. Municipalities have adopted Defined Retirement Option Plans, or DROPs, in which the employee earns his salary and his full defined-benefit retirement pay at the same time, with the retirement pay going into an account payable upon actual retirement. And as average Americans work longer to sustain themselves, public employees can retire in their early fifties with their plush benefits.
The old deal seemed fair: public employees would earn lower salaries than Americans working in the private sector, but would receive a somewhat better retirement and more days off. Now, public employees get higher average pay, far higher benefits, and many more days off and other fringe benefits. They have also obtained greatly reduced work schedules, thus limiting public services even as pay and benefits shoot ever higher. The new deal is starting to raise eyebrows, thanks to efforts by groups such as the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, which publishes the $100,000 Club, a list of thousands of California government retirees with six-figure, taxpayer-guaranteed incomes. But even in these tough times, public employees continue to press city councils for retroactive pension increases, which amount to gifts of public funds for past services. Officials fear the clout that these unions, especially police and fire unions, wield on Election Day.
The story doesn’t end with the imbalance in pay and benefits. Government workers also enjoy absurd protections. The Los Angeles Times did a recent series about the city’s public school district, which doesn’t even try to fire incompetent teachers and is seldom able to get rid of those credibly accused of misconduct or abuse. Misbehaving teachers are sometimes kept from teaching, but they may spend years, even a decade, getting paid while they fight attempts to fire them. A state law referred to as the Peace Officers Bill of Rights, along with excessive privacy restrictions, likewise makes it nearly impossible to fire police officers who abuse their authority.
The media have finally started to take notice, largely because of some impossible-to-ignore financial excesses, particularly the tens of billions of dollars in “unfunded liabilities”—that is, future debt—run up by politicians more interested in pleasing union officials than in looking after the public’s finances. News reports have also focused on scandals at CalPERS, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which has faced record losses after making risky leveraged investments in bizarre real-estate deals. (The government pension system encourages such risky behavior: with defined-benefit systems, union members stand to gain if the investments go well, while taxpayers shoulder the burden if they don’t.) Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reported on a politically connected insider who received $53 million in finder’s fees from CalPERS, raising questions of pay-to-play deals.
But the real scandal is a two-tier society where government workers enjoy benefits far in excess of those for whom they supposedly work. It’s past time to start cleaning up the mess by reforming retirement systems and limiting the public unions’ power. If we don’t, California’s financial problems will become insurmountable.
Steven Greenhut is the author of Plunder! How Public Employee Unions Are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives And Bankrupting The Nation. He is the director of the Pacific Research Institute’s Journalism Center in Sacramento and was a longtime columnist for the Orange County Register in Santa Ana.
ParticipantIt’s interesting in that I haven’t heard any democratic assembly members introducing legislation to promote pensions for private employees.
Except for true public safety workers, no California gov’t workers deserve ANY pension/defined benefit at all. And make it retroactive as well.
For all those who are producers (private sector), you are being ROBBED by the public sector, period.
ParticipantI wonder how many innocent civilians were killed by NATO bombs?
ParticipantLet’s be clear about one thing, I don’t think anyone is saying gov’t workers shouldn’t get a fair salary and savings plan; it’s just that right now what they get is unfair to the rest of us who have to actually pay for their benefits.
For the most part, there is no reason gov’t workers shouldn’t receive benefits on par with those of us in the private sector.
They deserve:
A decent salary
A 401k Retirement account with 50% up to 6% match
A standard medical plan like the rest of us get: $20-$30 co-pays, 4k deductible, etc..No Pensions
No lifetime medical benefits
Sign them up for social securityParticipant[quote=UCGal]
Rather than trying to ripp the pensions from people who still have them, why not argue that this trend should be reversed in the private sector.
[/quote]Can I ask you a serious question UCGal? Ok, cool…
What world do you live in?
In case you haven’t heard the news in your world, 99%ers are DESPERATE for work. Pensions AIN’T making a come back.
Back to the OP, even those modest proposals won’t pass. The only hope for justice with regard to these outrageous pensions/benefits/salaries is for Cali to go bankrupt – which is the best thing in the long run I do believe.
I heard a public employee union goon on the news asking: Well how will these workers be able to provide for themselves and family when they retire.
In a way that statement is propaganda to give the impression that the Brown proposals are not just window dressing but are real and deep cuts. On the other hand this tool also really is that out of touch.
October 26, 2011 at 10:17 AM in reply to: End Collective Bargaining with Public Unions in CA #731337ParticipantBottom line: Fund your own retirement and don’t expect others to do it for you.
October 25, 2011 at 10:28 PM in reply to: End Collective Bargaining with Public Unions in CA #731315Participant[quote=bearishgurl]
Again, this is another “little understood” practice by “the masses.”[/quote]Regardless – and many of the points made by CAR are really academic as well. The bottom line is that gov’t workers by and large have gold plated salaries and benefits – and those of who produce are tired of paying for them when we’re doing all we can to barely stay afloat.
*City Manager of Temecula making as much if not more than the President of the United States
*Lifeguards making making nearly a quarter of a million dollars/year
*Gov’t workers retiring in the their 50’s as millionaires
and on and on….WE’VE HAD ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!
ParticipantLittle opportunity (perceived or real) leads to disaffected youth.
ParticipantWhat really makes me sick about the DC area are the claims of being a regional and national high tech leader.
The vast majority of supposed tech workers in the DC area merely implement what has been created in places like California and Redmond.
What a joke.
Participant[quote=hugo]DC is now considered the wealthiest metro-area in the country. [/quote]
That’s b/c the gov’t is taking $$$$$$$$$$$$ from the rest of the country and using that money to expand (via contractors or gov’t workers) the size and role of the gov’t to unprecedented levels. It’s sickening: the rest of the country suffers so the DC area can become a bloated pig.
Meanwhile the true talent is in places like California.
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