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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Aug 31, 2011 - 10:36pm PT
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why California is broke
Maybe it's because it's a Repub state with no union/congressional backing.
It's gotta be bacause we need more rules, more unions, and more illegals.
That's the real solution.
EDIT:
I work in a mine. I don't get hazard pay.
Man up, bitch.
That's a real, old-school, badass Californian right there. Need more like him! (Okay, Werner and the Bird qualify too...)
Dave, hiring?
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Anastasia
climber
hanging from an ice pick and missing my mama.
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Aug 31, 2011 - 10:50pm PT
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Top heavy bureaucracy for government jobs with ten bosses for each employer. Reckless spending on pet projects. Mishandling of funds. Abuse within the welfare system, etc. etc.
The typical stuff that happens when people take for granted that things will just "work" and not bother monitoring them.
AFS
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ME Climb
Trad climber
Behind the Orange Curtain
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California is not going broke because of public safety salaries or pensions. California officers are payed the most because they are the best trained and most professional officers any where in the country.
Most public employees are in the CalPERS. On average either public agencies or the employee are paying about 9% of their salaries into their retirement. Some public agencies are paying additional money towards the retirement. For example my city pays the initial 9% of my retirement (this was negotiated into the contract approximatly 25 years ago in lieu of a raise). I then pay an addition 6.132%. Our new employees are paying over 10% additional.
For many years PERS was "super funded". This means that they were making enough money from their investments they were not charging cities the 9%. If the cities had been smart they would have taken the entire 9% or at least a portion of it and kept it in reserve. Instead nearly all of them looked at this as an unexpected windfall and spent all the money. When the markets crashed PERS took a substantial hit and began to charge the cities the money they should have been charging all along. When the cities lost their windfall they began to say the employee retirements were the cause and not their financial mismanagement.
PERS is now making over 20% return on their investments.
Yes I have a fabulous retirement. But I also have a life expectancy that is shorter than the average. I also deal with people who want to hurt and kill me. I must deal with bodily fluids, feces, urine, and god knows who what other crap, people who are unreasonable, incapable or unwilling to solve their own problems. I have worked many holidays, strange hours, and missed family functions, dinners, and many other things. Yes I chose my career and the problems that go with it. I do deserve the benefits that have been negotiated through our contracts. No benefit has ever come without us giving in somewhere else.
The politicians can try to blame public safety for the financial problems but it is simply not the truth.
Eric
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apogee
climber
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"Yes I have a fabulous retirement. But I also have a life expectancy that is shorter than the average. I also deal with people who want to hurt and kill me. I must deal with bodily fluids, feces, urine, and god knows who what other crap, people who are unreasonable, incapable or unwilling to solve their own problems. I have worked many holidays, strange hours, and missed family functions, dinners, and many other things."
Obviously, you are in the same evil category as all of those school teachers with their exorbitant salaries, benefits, and pension plans. Evil! Evil! Evil!
No doubt, it is because of hard-working, committed public servants such as yourself that our economy has tanked, and put those sad, unfortunate 1% upper income earners at risk. Shame! Shame! Shame!
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ME Climb
Trad climber
Behind the Orange Curtain
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Apogee,
Obviously I am evil and I am going straight to hell!
And no I do not pay social security and I will not be able to collect it. Silver lining?
And teachers should get paid a ton more than they do. They are the true heros of our society.
Eric
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nick d
Trad climber
nm
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I work in a mine. I don't get hazard pay.
I notice you don't say what you get paid, which I'm sure is very high considering there is no educational requirement. Thats your "hazard pay"
It's always amusing to hear the high school dropout construction/oilfield/mine workers crowing about not needing any education to make the big bucks. All they need is gumption!
Good luck sitting out the next price slump in whatever mineral you mine. Do you go welfare or "man up" and bag groceries?
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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I don't think we should ignore Gene's elegantly simple explanation. Both sides of the inequality need work.
California's inflow depends excessively on income tax revenue from the highest earners. In a good year, the top 1% of income earners pay 50% of all California income tax receipts. Unless the rest of California contributes, they have less incentive to control costs, and there simply aren't enough high income earners in this state to fund an acceptable level of state government.
Unfortunately, that's proven politically impossible. The Republicans are stuck on "no new taxes," and the Democrats are stuck on "soak the rich." Until we get an electorate willing to tax themselves, and not someone else, we should assume that what we get now is all we will get.
As for the outflow, much of that depends on decisions made outside the state, other than salaries and staffing levels of state workers. I know too little about staffing levels to comment, except that the DMV office sure seems swamped.
On salaries, however, I propose a very simple model. Forget trying to compare one job with another. That leads straight to the comparable worth fallacy. Instead, let's look at whether salary levels lead to queues of job seekers, or vacancies that are hard to fill.
To take a non-California example of how this would work, consider the Postal Service. Rank and file postal workers' positions have a huge queue. We should not increase their pay until the lineup to get in is reduced. Postal management jobs, on the other hand, are harder to fill. We should increase that salary until there are no vacancies.
Traditionally, cities pay firefighters and police officers similarly. Statistically, a firefighter's job is more dangerous, but there is usually a queue for firefighters' positions, but less of one for police. This suggests that we're paying too much for firefighters.
If I were king of California, I would review which state positions have queues and which have vacancies, and adjust salaries accordingly. After all, we don't order people into fields of work; they choose where to work based on remuneration, qualifications, and any number of other reasons.
Since I think there will be little support for broadening the tax burden, and too little support on the right to offset the vehement opposition of state employee unions to a queue and vacany salary system, I expect neither proposal to get anywhere, and
(to keep this somewhat in the spirit of climbing threads)
. . . . . . .We're gonna die!
John
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apogee
climber
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I don't want to 'soak the rich'. I just want them to pay a reasonably equitable share, and to not have an advantage simply because the tax code is looser than Paris Hilton, and because they can manipulate the entire system to their advantage because they can.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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apogee,
Do you want to pay more taxes yourself, or do you think only "the rich" should pay more? Our finances are on a roller-coaster precisely because top incomes fluctuate so much. When so great a percentage of our income tax take depends on the returns of a few taxpayers, if they have a bad year, we have a disastrous one.
I used the term "soak the rich" because the only tax proposals I hear from Democrats invovle incresing taxes only on the top earners (and, of course, on corporations, since no one knows which individuals actually pay the corporate income tax).
John
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apogee
climber
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John, I don't really mind paying taxes, believe it or not. I figure it's a small price to pay to have such a wonderful standard of life that I enjoy. Call me naive (you won't, but others will), but it really doesn't get my panties too much in a bunch. (Now I've done it. Everyone knows about my panties.)
I just don't believe that the uber-rich are paying anything close to a fair share (whatever that is)- they have the tax & economic system gamed in their favor. I'm not suggesting communist-style wealth distribution...just something a little fairer than where we are right now.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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I used the term "soak the rich" because the only tax proposals I hear from Democrats invovle incresing taxes only on the top earners (and, of course, on corporations, since no one knows which individuals actually pay the corporate income tax).
Surely, John, you would stipulate, that in difficult financial times, the rich are the only ones that are not going to be greatly inconvenienced by a small adjustment upwards in their taxes, while such an adjustment for middle and, particularly, lower income people can be very difficult...even life threatening.
By the way, I agree with your job scarcity and reimbursment scheme. It is logical and makes sense to me.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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John, I also believe that the very rich have engineered a massive transfer of wealth in this country over the last 40 years. Massive. It is as though there has been a huge tax on assets on the rest of society that has been paid to them. I suggest that that effective tax be repealed.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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It is a fact that there has been a massive transfer of wealth to the wealthy, and that income inequality has greatly increased. No need for belief.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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But it would be unfair to make them pay more. That would be wealth redistribution.
Oh wait..
To whom much is given, much is required.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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I used the term "soak the rich" because the only tax proposals I hear from Democrats invovle incresing taxes only on the top earners (and, of course, on corporations, since no one knows which individuals actually pay the corporate income tax).
Tax revenue needs to rise across the board. However, as long the republicans say no new revenue, even from closing crazy tax loopholes, then I think it is reasonable for democrats to hammer away at this.
If the republicans were responding with tax revenu proposals on just the middle class, maybe they could comprise and raise taxes across the board.
But that would take a willingness for republicans to comprise. If they aren't going to comprise, why shouldn't democrats point out that the rich dont [usually] pay their fair share.
Or do you expect the democrats to adopt the republican position that tax hikes for the wealthy are off the table?
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James Wilcox
Boulder climber
Santa Barbara
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Everyone paying their fair share is reasonable.
Raising taxes to compensate for poor fiscal management and policy is not.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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If I were king of California, I would review which state positions have queues and which have vacancies, and adjust salaries accordingly. After all, we don't order people into fields of work; they choose where to work based on remuneration, qualifications, and any number of other reasons.
hahahahaha.
when i become king of the world i'm going to apply your model but start with ceos and nfl quarterbacks.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Many of you would be surprised as to how few tax "loopholes" really remain.
especially those of us who know something about the topic. virtually every california budget for the last several decades has been larded down with tax breaks targeted to specific corporate sponsors in specific republican congressional districts in order to get specific repubs to vote for a budget.
since due to prop 13, each of those breaks and loopholes would require a 2/3 vote to get rescinded, they are all essentially in place for perpetuity, including the ones we suspect are actually harmful.
a few of them may have been good ideas-- possibly even economically rational.
but they are mostly just another cluster in the tax code compared with the glaring structural changes created by prop 13.
again, not that it matters. i see no prospect even for a split roll, not even one written to safeguard small business and start-ups. for the foreseeable future, the state is going to funnel milliions of dollars a year to pg&e, etc.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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California's inflow depends excessively on income tax revenue from the highest earners. In a good year, the top 1% of income earners pay 50% of all California income tax receipts. Unless the rest of California contributes, they have less incentive to control costs, and there simply aren't enough high income earners in this state to fund an acceptable level of state government.
More right-wing horseshit which conveniently ignores that INCOME tax is one of many taxes paid. Conveniently ignores what percent of the income did those 1%ers made.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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More right-wing horseshit
actually, it is true that the ultra-wealthy pay a vast share (the percentage varies by year) of state income tax, and that it's a problem for the budget.
it's not a problem because it's unfair to the ultra-rich to tax their income at a high rate or because they'll then leave the state (it's not and they haven't), but because of the resulting revenue volatility.
the incomes of the ultra-wealthy vary geometrically year to year. that means that our income tax revenues also fluctuate wildly. and since the budget is mostly drive by mandates with occult mathematical formulae to dictate spending, it means that planning has become a frickin nightmare.
prop 13 radically shifted our revenue model away from one in which cities and counties had real power and a real purse, to one in which the state and state income tax became increasingly important.
another tax-the-rich prop at this point would actually make revenue volatility worse.
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