Californians are like crack addicts with spending.
It will get worse, and it must get worse because an addict never changes until they hit bottom or die.
Add to this the 10% off the top that everyone in CA gets taken out of their paycheck.
Oregon and Washington are following close behind, and when the collapse comes all three will go down the fiscal toilet. Think unemployment is high right now?? Wait until the entire West Coast starts laying off Public employees en masse, when the Federal money finally runs out.
A few examples:
Here locally in SW Washington where unemployment is at 13.7% and rising, the School Board is asking for a two year “maintenance levy” which will increase property taxes for the next two years. That very same School District also employs over 100 “Administrators” that get paid over $120,000 annually. Just how many “Assistant Principals” do we need?
Last year, one of the State-paid University Presidents announced his personal sacrifice by forgoing a raise to his over $600,000 annual salary. I’m breathlessly waiting to hear what his “sacrifice” will be this year.
The County is facing $12 Million (at least) in budget cuts next year, and the City is looking at drastically cutting a number of services. At the same time, the Columbia Crossing Project continues to spend over $1 Million Dollars per month on a project that will likely never see the light of day because of the insistence of Federal Transit authorities that the Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia River include light rail, or there will be no Federal funding at all.
Never mind that they are ignoring who funds “The Feds”...
Tolls are estimated to be at least $1300 annually for local residents who commute to work, and likely will go much higher if “peak tolling” schemes are implemented that could drive tolls as high as $7.50 at rush hour. Tolling alone would extract as much as $39 Million Dollars from the local economy alone, or what remains of it.
The fact is that just in Clark County Washington alone we are short 30,000 jobs. Thirty thousand jobs against a local population of around 410,000 in the County. The surrounding Counties in SW Washington aren’t doing any better.
City, County and State (Union) workers in all States are in for a rude awakening very soon, and the unemployment rates will spike through the roof when all of those layoffs come, and they will be happening shortly after the Holidays. I’d look for most places to wait at least until January 1st to start hacking at the Payroll...
We could also just go bankrupt and negate all retirement obligations.