“Cut the salaries of all public employees by 25%, and eliminate their pensions.”
That would put a nice dent in the California deficit, but not much more than that. My back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that the California budget deficit is so large that you'd have to fire just about everyone on the state payroll to nearly wipe out their deficit. The entire California state employee payroll is less than their state deficit.
Thus, even firing the whole bunch of them, I think you'd still have to cut a few other programs.
Now of course, it's ridiculous to assert (no matter how good it feels to do so) that the state could fire its entire workforce. But even if you cut the workforce by half and cut everyone else's pay by 25%, you'd still have a very large deficit.
And one wonders how much of both staffing levels and compensation levels are set in binding contracts.
That's why the author suggests a resort to bankruptcy court, as contracts mandating staffing and compensation levels could be voided. But the folks who left comments at the site point out that formal bankruptcy isn't an option for states. I don't know if that's true or not, but if that is true, it removes another possible way out of their crisis.
The article also discusses the fact that roughly 50% of the state budget has been written into law through the state intiative process. I don't know whether much of that could be altered even in bankruptcy court.
California may be the US’s first “failed state” along the lines that we call places like Somalia “failed states.”
sitetest
California could and should completely solve its fiscal problems by allowing off shore drilling of their own HUGE reserves of oil and natural gas......we keep hearing the administration calling for an end to reliance on foreign oil......California could lead the way......silly windmills aren’t going to do the trick.......pathetic
Those "contracts" aren't real. In order to be "binding", you must say WHO is bound to do WHAT.
Since public employees produce nothing, their compensation must come from taxation, or borrowing. There is no power which can compel the representatives of the People of California to enact a tax, or to borrow a dime.
Therefore, these "contracts" are incapable of enforcement and are void on their face.