paraphrase of some movie - is that clear? crystal that is it in a nutshell. government is bankrupting non government workers. When I was young working for the government meant a 30% cut in pay.
You are so right. The next battle is not between white and black, rich or poor, old or young. It will be between those living off government and those paying the freight. A private business facing the sort of financial crisis facing California would have already prioritized its expenditures and cut those that weren't contributing. Every day we read about a company laying people off, shuttering operations that aren't viable or otherwise cutting costs. Government, at all levels, considers any cutback as out of the question. They act like minor furloughs are a catastrophe. When forced to the wall, inevitably they do one of two things. Either impose an across the board cut, which implies that every dollar of spending is equally important. Or, cut the things that will have the biggest impact on taxpayers so that they will feel the pain. They will cut high school football, close parks, etc but they never seem to consider eliminating highly paid make-work administrators, cut travel to conferences and "training" or get rid of entire programs that have minimal impact.
They are only illegal because you put that label on them... like in many other cases, legalizing might be the solution.
Spot on, except for the first part. Government, at all levels, considers an cutback or a slowing of growth and spending as out of the question.
P.J. O'Rourke wrote about that in the early 90s in his book Parliment of Whores. He interviewed people at the Department of Transportation and discovered most of them were automobile engineers who could make more money working for the feds then they could working at the car company. Make more money working for the goverment than they would at the unionized car company. Think about that for a moment.
Firing a few burocrats has never been the politically correct way to reduce expenses of the state... but it sure is sure gets the job done.
Pabst, I agree. I was simply answering SPECIFICALLY to a previous posts ("jems") wanting to know what I meant by the TAX BASE being pretty narrow in the State of California. I also elaborated on what makes the tax revenue structure so volatile. I think much of that went over the "heads" of several people on this thread, which I am not all that surprised by. As for the points that you made about pension reform . . . I think that's pretty obvious. Not just at the State level, but the Federal level as well. I also think that people need to remember the fact that the sheer numbers in the stat sheet on California are incredibly huge . . . We are talking about one of the largest COUNTRIES in the WORLD here that generates a TON of GDP! People tend to forget about the sheet magnitude of the State, let alone the infrastructure issues that are continually addressed, year in and year out. We are also talking about a State that spends $43 BILLION alone on post K-12 education . . . jc's, colleges, and the UC system, and spends a lot of money on "services" all the way around. Residents in the State are infamous for voting "YES" on all sorts of money spending Propositions every election year, but they have no idea how to pay for them. For example, how fiscally responsible was it to vote towards a "go ahead" for a high-speed rail train from San Fran to LA at a cost of $10 Billion in general obligation bonds for the project last November? I know its a long-term effort and construction is not set to start till 2012, but sometimes you have to buckle down and put your "hopes and dreams" on hold and live within your means. Yes, there needs to be pension reform. But I thought that was pretty obvious. And it's not just some clerical bureaucrat up in Sacramento, it's a whole host of others from fire, to highway patrol, the prison system, teachers association, medical staff, etc.
I am not sure if that was directed towards me but I can assure you it did not go over my head. Neighbors and I had this discussion over beers on the fourth of july. All the government job guys were repeating the mantra and saying we need to raise taxes and dismantle prop 7. I found the argument to be greedy and pig like. The balls of the government workers to say that taxes had to be raised. since you were not at my 4th of july party I figured I would spare you. But do you realize how pathetic that argument is. How does a tax base get too narrow. Well the obvious answers are overspending on government programs which encourage freeloaders and over taxing until the jobs and the tax paying workers leave. Increasing taxes on property owners is likely to shrink the tax base even further.
MORON, First of all, I don't make bets on an anonymous message board. I told you I would meet you face to face, but you declined. Look in the mirror butt-boy. You will see the many faces of Landis: Landis82 (7307 posts and counting) is your current alias. Here are a two more of your previous aliases. Apex Capital (1642 posts) http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=921675#post921675 waggie945 (4173 posts) http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=113823#post113823 You have over 13,000 posts with these three aliases. Only you know how many total aliases you have registered here on ET. On the eve of the final day of the Tour de France, it is appropriate that your web alias is Landis. Floyd Landis was a fraud in the sport of bicycle racing. You are a fraud here on ET. Have a nice weekend.