Government Greed

Public-Worker Pay: Nowhere has liberalism gone further than in San Francisco. And few, if any, other cities can boast such a well-heeled work force. Is this what "spreading the wealth" is all about?

We have seen the future and it works — for certain people. Take San Francisco municipal workers. The San Francisco Chronicle recently detailed just how overpaid the city's employees are. Their average yearly salary is $93,000 before benefits. A third of them made more than $100,000 in 2009. A newly retired deputy police chief (not even the city's top cop) made $516,118.

Now San Francisco is not the inevitable future of America. It does, however, represent one possible path. It's a promised land of liberalism, both social and fiscal. The city's tolerance of eccentric and, to some, offensive behavior is famous and longstanding.

Less celebrated in song and story, but just as significant, is its role as a theater for liberal interest-group politics. When it comes to enriching the denizens of the public sector, San Francisco shows the way.

Gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown spent much of a weekend Democratic convention framing the battle over the governorship in populist terms, with himself as the champion of ordinary people against super-rich financial manipulators ............

Brown told cheering Democrats; "State employees, those greedy
bastards, were making more money than me, the friggin governor."

California govt employee salaries (does not include pensions and benefits)

Special Nurse $350,000+
Municipal railway manager:$325,000+
Administrative services department head $280,000+

State college workers salaries:
JEFF TEDFORD UC BERKELEY HEAD COACH-INTERCOLG ATHLETICS $2,831,654
PHILIP E LEBOIT UC SAN FRANCISCO PROF OF CLIN___-MEDCOMP-A $1,979,362
TIMOTHY H MCCALMONT UC SAN FRANCISCO PROF OF CLIN___-MEDCOMP-A $1,945,717
RONALD W BUSUTTIL UC LOS ANGELES PROFESSOR-MEDCOMP-A $1,570,897
RICHARD J SHEMIN UC LOS ANGELES PROFESSOR-MEDCOMP-A $1,195,837
KHALIL M TABSH UC LOS ANGELES HS CLIN PROF-MEDCOMP-A $1,048,891
BEN BRAUN UC BERKELEY HEAD COACH-INTERCOLG ATHLETICS $998,569
http://www.sacbee.com/1098/story/1669273.html

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California debt may be half a trillion dollars: They knew in 11/29/09..........and earlier.
Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee, 11/29/09
FR Posted by SmithL

Just days before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators finalized a water package, including an $11.1 billion bond issue, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer warned them not to do it. California is already deeply in debt, Lockyer warned, has huge budget deficits and can't afford another big bond issue. "The days of blithely heaping more and more debt burden on the general fund are over – at least they should be," Lockyer said.

The earmark-laden bond issue, the package's single most controversial element, raises an interesting question: Just how deeply in debt are our state and local governments? The answer: No one knows for certain, since debt is scattered through myriad agencies in many forms, but well over a half-trillion dollars is a fair estimate.

Lockyer's warning pertained to the state's "general obligation debt," which currently stands at $59 billion, and there are an additional $50-plus billion in general obligation bonds that have not yet been sold.

The biggest chunks of debt, however, are the unfunded obligations for pensions and health care of retired public employees. (Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...

The government's "money machine" to buy votes was engineered in the 1970s when California's legislature cleared the way for public-employee unions to organize and bargain.

Then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed a crucial bill in 1978 that gave public workers, already protected under civil service, collective bargaining rights on top of that. Such legislation created far more than mere bargaining power. It also gave the unions access to dues money that could be deployed to reward friends in the legislature as well as beating back reform efforts at the ballot box.

"Wasn't my fault," Brown told cheering Democrats.

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