Posted on 10/19/2010 6:35:42 AM PDT by joinedafterattack
Two unions formed the group BASTA, the Bell Association To Stop Abuse, but it looks like BASTA wants to abuse the rest of the nation. BASTA, the group formed by the Bell Police Officers Association Union and the Union American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) want you to fork over your $$$$ for another Federal BAILOUT!!!!
"BASTA leadership is calling on Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard to craft emergency federal legislation to create a Federal Relief Fund for the City of Bell. The Relief Fund will seek to forgive and modify Bells current bond obligations [$71 million] and provide a much needed tax relief to property owners. The Security and Exchange Commissions is launching a wide-ranging investigation into a $70 million bond issue."
ARE YOU READY FOR ANOTHER FEDERAL BAILOUT CALLED FOR BY THE UNIONS?
(Excerpt) Read more at basta4bell.com ...
Screw the people of Bell. They’re just a bunch of Dembot voters. They got the government they deserved. Not an effing dime.
Firemen and cops are the new “children”. “Do it (pay more money/solve global warming/gov agencies take kids away from their families/save the environment, etc.) to save the firemen and the cops.” Whenever some lefty agendist, very often the unions, wants money now, they trot out the firemen and cops instead of the kids.
it seems to me all they need to do is go to the bank accounts of that city council and get that money back?
Those “cops” you’re speaking of making that kind of money are mainly (not all, but most) part of the prison guard union payoff fiasco to Gray Davis. Most CA cops make nothing like that when they retire. Basically they get 3% for each year of service x their highest year of salary falling within the last five years or so. So, if they worked 30 years, that would be 90%. If their highest salary year was $50k, they’d get .9 x $50k /12 mos. = $3750 + whatever else they get toward medical coverage. Yes, still a very nice retirement, but nothing like the $200k you stated. Disability retirement works a little differently.
The Whitman campaign should tie Brown to Gray Davis’s financial and union scandals. Brown started it and it led to a major rape of the taxpayers by the public employees unions.
They might need an actual judgment or order to seize assets, but it seems like they should be able to freeze them by getting temporary restraining orders to prevent the assets from disappearing and/or appoint a trustee to ensure that the assets aren’t transferred, sold, encumbered, depleted, etc..
Coming soon to you, California: Riots in the mold of France and Greece. Watch those countries if you want to see what happens next here.
A bunch of leftist thugs screwed the dumbass lib voters who put them in office and WE the taxpayers are supposed to bail them out....naturally so they elect some MORE democrat thugs!
I AM retired LEO CA and I know exactly how retirement is calculated. If you read my post CAREFULLY, you will see that I stated that “most” CA retired cops make nothing like those retirement schedules.
So I guess they salary data from the state of California is fake too?
Why are we paying high school graduates $200 to $300 thousand per year as law enforcement? Start there.
So do you have a six figure income paid by taxpayers? Does your wife have additional income? Are all (or nearly all) of your medical expenses paid by taxpayers?
Let us know.
ML/NJ
First, I don’t have a wife. I have a husband. Second, I have nothing close to a six-figure income. We pay about 95% of our health insurance premiums out of pocket.
My husband and I together make about $70k per year, plus what we make from a small, seasonal part-time business we run. We make about enough from the business to pay for a couple of modest fishing vacations each year and nice gifts for our grandkids. We have a comfortable, nice home, nothing grand, small mortgage and no car payments. My husband has a 17’ fishing boat that’s 25 years old, no other major ‘toys’, nor do I have anything particularly extravagant. We have a nice gun collection and I have a few pieces of nice jewelry and a nice wardrobe. We have extremely nice furniture and artwork. We live within our means, and I certainly didn’t get wealthy working in LE.
Is there anything else you’d like to know?
Just so you know I am opposed to all government pensions. I seem to remember this notion that future legislatures could not be bound by present ones. People need to save from their salaries for themselves. I used to think Social Security would be the ultimate undoing of the country, but the State/Local pensions are going to get there first.
That said, I'm a bit mystified why you guys are getting "only" 70K when I read about so many six figure (not even with a one as the leading digit!) government pensions out there.
ML/NJ
There are thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of retired LE in CA. Most are retired from city and county municipalities and most of those retirement plans are nothing like the numbers that have been bandied about. Most of those that you’ve been reading are outliers when you consider the number of retired LE members we have in this state. Most of those extreme cases and the bloc of retired state LE getting hefty pensions are based on union contracts pushed by the unions and greeted warmly by Gray Davis when he was governor. He enjoyed huge kickback campaign contributions from the unions that he used and spread around to other corrupt rats. The debacle between Davis and the state correctional officers union was particularly egregious and was the trigger for the successful movement to recall him. He was first elected governor in 1998 and he had about 5 years to wreak mayhem on the state’s finances through these fat, yummy contracts before he was dragged kicking and screaming from the scene of the crime. Nevertheless, the average state LE pensions resulting from those dirty deals don’t normally result in state LE pensions as high as those that have been pointed to, but they are way too generous nevertheless.
My retirement is not $70k. As I clearly stated, that’s what my husband and I gross together (not including the income from our seasonal business), and he’s not retired and is not a public employee of any kind.
In reply to your statement that we should have no pensions paid by the government, I notice you have no problem with private pensions. Nobody is going to sign up for LE or firefighting without it because they are inherently dangerous jobs. They are not the kind of jobs easily managed from a physical standpoint by people over age 50 or so. They are also highly stressful and the daily ration of adrenalin rushes alone takes its toll. Major burnout sets in at about age 40 or younger. It’s not unlike battle fatigue. Further, in most municipalities, the salary isn’t high enough to make the job worth doing, make ends meet, save for a big ticket item like retirement and some minimal college fund for a kid or two, unless of course you think LE and firefighters shouldn’t have kids because it costs more to raise them, feed them and give them a toehold on a decent future than a LE officer or firefighter deserves to be paid.
One way you can cut pension costs is to create less demand for police and fire. When they break in, harrass you when you’re old, rape your daughter or wife, spray paint your garage, shoot your dog, or catch you off guard, drag you into an alley and beat you half senseless and rob you or stick a gun in your face or your employee’s face, just let it go. Don’t call us. When your house catches fire due to your carelessness or the thugs you got even with for beating down your kid for his lunch money set fire to it in retaliation, let it burn. Don’t call us. See how that works? Less demand for police and fire means less in pensions paid.
I have no problem with private pensions because I believe in freedom. I also have no problem with government employees being paid some amount of money that they would be expected to put into their own pension fund. But then the costs of these pensions would be funded. Now they are not.
Actually people did sign up for these jobs without any promise of a pension for quite some time. Public sector pensions first arose early in the 20th century.
ML/NJ
We do pay into our pension funds from our salaries. The pension contributions that fund our retirement plan come from the employee and the employer. The employee contributions are mandatory.
I notice you have no reply to the rest of what I said. I’m beginning to think you haven’t thought this through carefully and are simply spouting the conservative knee-jerk maxim du jour.
Freedom=no pensions for police and fire is quite a leap of logic. It also challenges the ol’ rule of the fruit stand: “Never mix apples with oranges.”
*SHRUG*
I guess we have nothing to say to each other then. I assure you that I have thought much more about this and have read much more about it than you probably have.
Freedom=no pensions for police and fire is quite a leap of logic.
I guess you have trouble with the English language too. Freedom as I used it means that PRIVATE individuals and groups can do whatever they want, including establish their own pension agreements. FORCING me to pay YOUR pension isn't quite freedom. It's tyranny.
ML/NJ
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