CalPERS worse than Goldman Sachs
The hearing on the SB919 pension-reform bill is ending without a vote, because the committee lost its quorum, but it seems unlikely this is going to pass after hearing comments by committee Democrats. But Gov. Schwarzenegger’s pension adviser David Crane’s comments on behalf of pension reform were amazingly tough and on point and easily debunked the besides-the-point comments by Sen. Lou Correa, the Santa Ana Democrat who is trying to have it both ways, and by Denise Ducheny, the Chula Vista Democrat who can’t hide her hostility to the proposal. Her comments all come right out of the union playbook.
Speaking about CalPERS’ 1999 pension-increasing proposal, Crane argued, “It’s nothing short of astonishing that the CalPERS Proposal, which promoted the largest non-voter approved debt issuance in California history, was not accompanied by disclosures of risks or conflicts of interest. Frankly I’ve never seen anything like the CalPERS sales document, which makes even Goldman Sachs’s alleged non-disclosure look like child’s play.”
And this:
“I have a special word for my fellow Democrats: One cannot both be a progressive and be opposed to pension reform. The math is irrefutable that the losers from excessive and unfunded pensions are precisely the programs progressive Democrats tend to applaud. Those programs are being driven out of existence by rising pension costs.”
The Dems clearly don’t want pension reform. They certainly aren’t going to go against the public sector unions. This issue will indeed be handled through an initiative.
–Steven Greenhut
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The democrats, faced with the hard truth of pension reform, choose to turn to other business rather than do the hard thing.
No surprises there.
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No surprises there.
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— John Seiler
StevefromSacto, faced with the hard truth that taxes won’t EVER solve our state’s budget problems when we have GED gov employees being comped $200K per year, chooses to turn to other business rather than do the hard thing.
No surprises there.
OCO, the disguised version of a Republican lap dog from Orange County named Johnny Blaze, will never recognize the hard truth that tax reductions are subject to the law of diminishing returns. Along with the program cuts coming, there must be a tax increase for those who’ve made the most of shifting the tax burden to the middle class. Johnny Blaze will vigorously disagree and lick Greenputz’s boots.
No surprises there.
When Righties talk about cutting government spending, they always talk about “overpaid” state employees and “lavish” pensions. But the real cuts close schools, deny elderly Alzheimer’s patients needed homecare, etc.
Taxes alone won’t solve our budget problems, but neither will cuts alone. For example, for every dollar we don’t spend on the IHSS homecare program, we lose nearly $2.50 in federal funds. Plus, it costs five times more taxpayer money to care for someone in a nursing home than at home.