waiting2buylater_IHB
New member
Having lived in both states, I can see a lot of truth in this article. The excerpt below laid the blame on the public sector and the spend-spend-spend legislature:
In what respects, then, does California "excel"? California's state and local government employees were the best compensated in America, according to the Census Bureau data for 2006. And the latest posting on the website of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility shows 9,223 former civil servants and educators receiving pensions worth more than $100,000 a year from California's public retirement funds. The "dues" paid by taxpayers in order to belong to Club California purchase benefits that, increasingly, are enjoyed by the staff instead of the members.
None of this happens by accident. California's interlocking directorate of government employee unions, issue activists, careerists and campaign contributors has become increasingly aggressive and adept at using rhetoric extolling public benefits for all to deliver targeted advantages to itself. As a result, the political reality of the high-benefit/high-tax model is that its public goods are, increasingly, neither public nor good. Instead, the beneficiaries are the providers of the public services, and certain favored or connected constituencies, rather than the general population.
Full story can be found here:
<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-voegli1-2009nov01,0,825554.story">http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-voegli1-2009nov01,0,825554.story</a>
In what respects, then, does California "excel"? California's state and local government employees were the best compensated in America, according to the Census Bureau data for 2006. And the latest posting on the website of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility shows 9,223 former civil servants and educators receiving pensions worth more than $100,000 a year from California's public retirement funds. The "dues" paid by taxpayers in order to belong to Club California purchase benefits that, increasingly, are enjoyed by the staff instead of the members.
None of this happens by accident. California's interlocking directorate of government employee unions, issue activists, careerists and campaign contributors has become increasingly aggressive and adept at using rhetoric extolling public benefits for all to deliver targeted advantages to itself. As a result, the political reality of the high-benefit/high-tax model is that its public goods are, increasingly, neither public nor good. Instead, the beneficiaries are the providers of the public services, and certain favored or connected constituencies, rather than the general population.
Full story can be found here:
<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-voegli1-2009nov01,0,825554.story">http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-voegli1-2009nov01,0,825554.story</a>