CALIFORNIA: Voters sent clear message they want fiscal responsibility

Contra Costa Times ^ | 6/6/12 | Contra Costa Times editorial

[SmithL]

Voters sent a clear message Tuesday to their local leaders: get your financial houses in order. Don't ask for more money until you start responsibly spending what we've already given you. We're tired of losing public services as you siphon off our tax money to pay mounting costs of overly generous public-employee retirement benefits.

Nowhere in the East Bay was that message clearer than the city of Alameda and the East Contra Costa Fire District, two very different public agencies that were both asking for more money, but had yet to address their badly underfunded pension systems. Voters resoundingly rejected both measures.

Nowhere in the state was that message clearer than San Jose, where voters overwhelmingly approved a pension reform plan that will force city employees to pay more toward their pensions or accept reduced retirement benefit accruals in the future.

San Jose voters are tired of closed libraries, streets pocked with potholes, and neighborhoods unnerved by upswings in gang violence. They've watched the cost of employee pensions triple over the past decade while the number of city employees providing public services plunged.

San Jose's plight is not unique. Indeed, it has become the new normal for local governments across the state. But San Jose residents benefit from an unusual charter provision that makes it legally easier to impose changes on current employees.

Thus, while the city has become a poster child for pension reform, it doesn't provide a legal roadmap for the rest of the state. Some other local government will have to find the path. But the vote by the residents of the city sends a political message of growing discontent that state and local politicians must heed.

[sportutegrl]

I wonder if the elections in Cali and WI that sent a message to the public sector unions is a reason for the stock market doing so good today.

[SmithL]

I wonder if the elections in Cali and WI that sent a message to the public sector unions is a reason for the stock market doing so good today.

Apparently not: San Jose unions sue to block pension reform

[ravenwolf]

Good for them

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Don’t ask for more money until you start responsibly spending what we’ve already given you.

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But they should have said no more increases period.

[Dragonspirit]

California already had its chance to be financially sane. It chose otherwise. This is simply rearranging the chairs on the Titanic. Too little, too late.

The voters voted for Jerry Brown and other dem minions in 2010. In 2010 when every other state voted Republican. That was the final straw and I left. To be honest, their getting buyer’s remorse and making these tiny vote moves now is both annoying and yet makes me pity them too.

[ExCTCitizen]

Voters sent a clear message Tuesday to their local leaders: get your financial houses in order. Don't ask for more money until you start responsibly spending what we've already given you. We're tired of losing public services as you siphon off our tax money to pay mounting costs of overly generous public-employee retirement benefits.

Voters are starting to wake up...

[WashingtonSource]

In a word — “YES”

[Baynative]

"Voters sent clear message they want fiscal responsibility..."

HA - I wonder who they sent it to. As a former California resident I can tell them no one is listening.