There’s enough money to pay an adequate level of police and fire protection. What there isn’t enough money for is all the other BS departments and programs being provided.
The city fathers need to lay off employees in other departments, completely cut their positions and then lay their own butts off before any essential services are cut.
This is a time-old, tried-and-true tactic of rats in rat-run cities, counties and states across America: scare people into believing the services most needed will be cut if they don’t pony up more tax money. Commie Governor Jerry Brown is coming oout with a referendum on tax inxreases. The people will vote on whether or not they want to increase taxes to pay for all this crap. Brown has an extensive network with mayors and county governments throughout the state. He will have no trouble getting large Bay Area counties (such as Santa Clara Co. which is where San Jose is) to help him with his propaganda campaign to get the initiative to pass.
This particular announcement is a blatant propaganda move: notice that the announcement includes the threat of severely reducing gang control programs? Blatant scare tactic. There are a whole lot of people who should be sent packing, including the mayor and the city council, before one firefighter or cop is laid off. Any layoffs from police and fire should be strictly clerical. Let some of these fatassed beotches put their finger nail files and their cell phones and their bags of chips and Hostess ding-dongs down and do some work for a change. If they all put in a day’s work for a day’s pay, 2/3 of those jobs could be eliminated.
Santa Clara County would be right at the top of the list for wanting the tax increase initiative to pass because it is so heavily Mexican and pro-Mexican there it may as well be called San Jose, Mexico. For example, CSU San Jose has been renamed to something (I forget what at the moment) that implies it is a Mexican university or is in Mexico. Santa Clara County wants this increase to keep funding more programs and benefits for illegals.
So that’s the Real story.
By and large government activities have no ability to be efficient. They don’t have prices for the costs of each job.
The private sector is always trying to get a handle on all costs. A good restaurant owner will tell you what a paper napkin costs him, what his gas bill is in cold weather each month. You think that type of cost control exists in the public sector? It doesn’t. So, even energetic managers don’t have price/cost data to make economic decisions, and thus free up money for what is thought more valuables.
And you know that the entire culture is price/cost investigating adverse. People don’t want to know. The whole subject is fraught with the chance that your position is the most costly, or least productive, or thought of as the easiest to target. Everyone will hang on hoping they’re the last. Human nature.
The office ladies are near the decision making administrators. If the ladies go, then there won’t be a need for so many office admin, so the decision makers will keep them as a reserve of last ditch sacrifices to the lay off God.
There is no bang for the tax increase buck.
You get more bureaucrats hired who need more pay and pension and who vote for more increases for more jobs costing more pay and pensions.
After a while you got one lone guy in one lone factory supporting a gazillion bureaucrats all impressed with their position in the pecking order of the bureacracy.
It’s insane. It can’t go on.
When taxes go up, at a minimum you should see a bridge, a road, a something that gets built or repaired and that consumed some 95% of the increase.