The Pig Unions and Teachers Unions hold the state governments hostage. Taxpayers are sapped to pay Cadillac pensions and outrageous benefits for these clowns until death.
The Pig Unions and Teachers Unions hold the state governments hostage. Taxpayers are sapped to pay Cadillac pensions and outrageous benefits for these clowns until death.
Unions wrote:
The Pig Unions and Teachers Unions hold the state governments hostage. Taxpayers are sapped to pay Cadillac pensions and outrageous benefits for these clowns until death.
California Teacher (and union member here). I would agree with this statement. I'm only a member of the union because it is in my contract that I have to be.
However, this is far from the only reason my state is a quagmire of poor governance.
1. Ballot box legislation. The populace just ain't well informed enough to pass legislation. It isn't our job to study the issues and pass laws to deal with them, but we feel obliged to do so because....
2. Political gridlock in Sacramento makes us feel like we need to "do something". A perfect example is CA prop 99. Everybody thought it would be pretty nifty if we tied education funding to a certain percentage of state revenue. I don't know the exact verbiage of the law, but it worked out like this. During the late 90's when the dot com boom was doing its thing, our schools were flush with money. Schools were getting all kinds of shit we didn't need. "hey, I know, lets put 4 computers in every classroom". "What are we going to do with only 4 computers 4 a whole classroom full of kids? Shouldn't we build a lab or something?" "No, you will get 4 computers that you will never use and you will like it".
Now, the state's coffers have run dry, but the level of spending on education is expected to continue at unrealistically high levels from the boom times. Education makes up 40% of the state's budget, but is a sacred cow. We've taken cuts, but nowhere near the cuts that we should have taken.
3. Legislative gridlock is owing to the intense partisanship in the capitol. Our districts are gerrymandered beyond belief (not an uncommon occurance). We get dems from incredibly safe democratic districts and repubs from incredibly safe republican districts. These guys get to sacramento and cannot agree on the color of shit. The repubs have become such the angry minority that they cannibalized one of their own. Mike Villines voted with the dems a couple of years ago in a tax issue and was oustered from his party leadership role as a result even though the general public saw his compromise as the type of spirit that is needed to solve the state's problems.
Try Arizona.
Spending must be reduced, we know this.
Who’s going to suggest the tough sacrifices ?
Social Security entitlements and the Defense Dept?
This is why the cowards in Congress need to be removed.
The power hungry, influence peddling, royalty in the Democratic and Republican parties .
It doesn’t surprise me that California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York are collapsing under the weight of it’s debt.
Wages for union workers, bureaucrats and civil servants have crippled Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.
Garbage men making 100K, police and fire with six figure pensions and bureaucrats three levels deep who never make a decision, making six figures and who’s only job is getting out the vote.
Everyone is saying we need to create jobs.
What jobs? What industry? The jobs we need most have left our shores.
We need to return value to manual labour.
Heavy construction , steel production , calluses and dirt beneath ones fingernails jobs .
What we don’t need is more five hundred dollar phones made in China.
Grads thinking about developing the next Facebook or computer dating site.
We don’t need more leisure or luxury items .
Surely you're trolling on this one. LOSERanna? Second only to Chicago and just a tad ahead of New Jersey in the corruption politics. Ray Nagin, Mary Landrieu, William Jefferson et al??? I was shocked when they voted Jindal in who is a rather droll personality but appears to run against the mob mentality in politics of LA.
oh, and i forgot the raiders.
""The reason California is in bad shape is do to 2 reasons:
1) ballot initiatives / direct democracy
2) The republican minority in the state senate trying to stop anything from getting done""
That is the most laughable thing I have ever read on Letsrun. "California is in bad shape because of the minority republican state senate".... No, it has nothing to do with the left wing teachers unions, trial lawyers, and the refusal to cut spending. Republicans have no power in California, and you are in major denial. The fact is that liberal democrats have been in control of California for 20 years. The idiots in my state deserve what they get.
Thank the Gods that Nazi mutha is gone and Moom Beam is back in office. Nazineggar sucked the sausages of the White Pig unions and Fire Unions and stole from the taxpayers and teachers to give them every damn thing they wanted. Now California pays the White pigs and Fire Retards double what they pay teachers. That's what we got with that Nazi punk governor.
Miller is neither a chicken hawk nor a coward. He's a clear thinking individual with common sense - a rare commodity in California nowadays. He is absolutely correct about Boxer and the rest of her liberal cronies in California... they are ruining the state and the country at large.
If California had an ounce of common sense, it would have elected the most right wing conservative it possibly could... someone who unapologetically called for the most dramatic slashing of government spending imaginable. Instead, they elect... Jerry Brown??? OMFG. California will get what it deserves.
...Arnold Schwarzenegger, btw, is not a conservative. He is the classic Republican in name only, and went along with every liberal spending initiative that crossed his desk. California has been a liberal-run state, top to bottom, during the Schwarzenegger era.
There is a proper way and a wrong way to bust someone's balls. The ball buster should use his powers of discernment to detect whether he can bust someone's balls and in what manner.
Some people are just not good ball busters and they do so at their own peril. They are the ones who have people react passionately and get into a fight of some kind. Most people should bust balls only mildly, unless they are an artiste of ball busting, in which case they can turn up the heat and still be loved for it, a la Don Rickles.
Arnold Schwatzeneggar and Dennis Miller are both self-admitted, confirmed, Chicken Hawk Cowards. Neither served in the infantry, yet they're big mouth Arab, Jew, and Mexican haters. They're on the record as being so.
Schwarzenegger can only work with what the state legislatutre gives him. The governors in California don't have a heck of a lot of power. Davis was recalled largely for not anticipating growing problems like the brownouts and the beginning of the budget problems. Schw. tried to corral the legislative branch in his first couple of years and made some initial progress with budgets, but there really wasn't much he could do for the long run. All the people who could make for a good governor won't touch the job and I don't blame them.
CA education has been going downhill since Prop 13 passed 30 years ago. Something needed to be done about property taxes back then, but Prop 13 wasn't it.
The state went liberal when Republicans tried that English-only nonsense in the 90's. Lost the hispanic vote which had been generally on the right side of the aisle.
Boxer, Pelosi, they aren't in state government. Pelosi is basically bullet-proof, being from SF.
I wouldn't mind some restriction on initiatives like 55 or 60% to pass. Sometimes I think people just don't read the arguments.
Riverside Gary wrote:
""The reason California is in bad shape is do to 2 reasons:
1) ballot initiatives / direct democracy
2) The republican minority in the state senate trying to stop anything from getting done""
That is the most laughable thing I have ever read on Letsrun. "California is in bad shape because of the minority republican state senate".... No, it has nothing to do with the left wing teachers unions, trial lawyers, and the refusal to cut spending. Republicans have no power in California, and you are in major denial. The fact is that liberal democrats have been in control of California for 20 years. The idiots in my state deserve what they get.
psst! Don't spread such "blasphemy" such as "Liberals aren't perfect and Republicans aren't the root of all evil!" (and also don't tell them that there is a difference between liberal and democrat, and conservative and republican, but that's another story for another day I suppose)
It is laughable that people will blame the powerless minority for their "blocking" every bill that would "save" the state or union, and not give credence to the fact that those in power -- regardless of their political "affiliation" (beyond themselves, which is always first and foremost) are mortgaging the future of their constituents in order to buy their votes.
Cali is a tug of war between 5 selfish, effite, snotty, self-serving interests:
1) Police and Fire Unions
2) Teachers Unions
3) Civil Servant Unions
4) GOP
5) Democrats
4) and 5) are powerless.
True. We democrats do a good job of blaming the republicans for everything. The cool thing is, we ger a few idiots who buy that bullshit. We call them idiots.
watchout wrote:
Riverside Gary wrote:""The reason California is in bad shape is do to 2 reasons:
1) ballot initiatives / direct democracy
2) The republican minority in the state senate trying to stop anything from getting done""
That is the most laughable thing I have ever read on Letsrun. "California is in bad shape because of the minority republican state senate".... No, it has nothing to do with the left wing teachers unions, trial lawyers, and the refusal to cut spending. Republicans have no power in California, and you are in major denial. The fact is that liberal democrats have been in control of California for 20 years. The idiots in my state deserve what they get.
psst! Don't spread such "blasphemy" such as "Liberals aren't perfect and Republicans aren't the root of all evil!" (and also don't tell them that there is a difference between liberal and democrat, and conservative and republican, but that's another story for another day I suppose)
It is laughable that people will blame the powerless minority for their "blocking" every bill that would "save" the state or union, and not give credence to the fact that those in power -- regardless of their political "affiliation" (beyond themselves, which is always first and foremost) are mortgaging the future of their constituents in order to buy their votes.
Are you trying to claim that the minority party members in a state or national congress do not have the power to block just about every piece of legislation if they want to?
Do you even understand how our legislation system works?
As long as the minority party has around 40% of the votes they can block just about anything they want thus stopping any legislation from happening. I'm not necessarly for or against this but don't try and claim that the minority party in congress can't stop legislation from happening even good legislation.
At first I read that as 'most administered' rather than 'most poorly administered,' but that doesn't really matter, because my answer to both questions is the same- a connection I doubt to be coincidental.
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm wrote:Are you trying to claim that the minority party members in a state or national congress do not have the power to block just about every piece of legislation if they want to?
Do you even understand how our legislation system works?
As long as the minority party has around 40% of the votes they can block just about anything they want thus stopping any legislation from happening. I'm not necessarly for or against this but don't try and claim that the minority party in congress can't stop legislation from happening even good legislation.
Apparently you need a reminder in just how lopsided and non-existent the balance is in California.
In the California Senate, 24 of the 40 members are members of the Democratic party (60%), while 13 are members of the Republican party (32.5%) and 3 seats are currently vacant.
In the California State Assembly, 52 of the 80 members are from the Democratic party (65%), while 28 are from the Republican party (35%).
Aligning themselves with one party or another doesn't necessarily mean they follow the same exact philosophies. Many Democrats or Republicans might be moderate or somewhat liberal Republicans or conservative Democrats.
Much like the national system, most bills require a simply majority, while more important bills require a 2/3 majority. For a 2/3 majority, Democrats need 1.3 more votes (or Republicans to abstain) in the Senate and 2.7 more votes (or Republicans to abstain) in the Assembly.
Is there really any doubt in your mind that the Democrats don't control the legislation in California? Even if the Republican party were completely unified, it would still be incredibly tough to stalemate every 2/3 majority vote, and they would obviously lose every simple majority vote.
California has long been a liberal stronghold... it is a VERY liberal state. Under the liberals watch over the past few decades, the situation has gotten steadily worse because they did not control their spending and kept bribing their constituents with benefits they could not continue to pay. But voters keep voting in liberal candidates and kept voting for social welfare... and now they are bankrupt. Take that for whatever it's worth.
California is a perfect testimony to the impotence and immaturity of liberals. Despite the fact that even the Republicans in California are left of center, having run their state into utter bankruptcy, all they can do is sputter about and blame the right for the complete and utter failure of their ideology. They can blame others for their mistakes all they want, but doing so won't save them from the consequences of their stupidity.
GH253 wrote:
California is a perfect testimony to the impotence and immaturity of liberals. Despite the fact that even the Republicans in California are left of center, having run their state into utter bankruptcy, all they can do is sputter about and blame the right for the complete and utter failure of their ideology. They can blame others for their mistakes all they want, but doing so won't save them from the consequences of their stupidity.
Quite true. The Golden State never reached the Golden Mean... too bad.