Forget Government Waste and Exploding Public Pensions, We've Got a Budget Crisis Here!

Remember when the head of the powerful Service Employees International Union gave the L.A. Times editorial board a big "democracy is an ugly thing" shrug when accused of helping ruin the Golden State's finances? I present without further comment the subhed on an L.A. Times opinion piece by SEIU International Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina:

The governor's obsession with 'waste' in public services distracts lawmakers from dealing with the state's crippling budget crisis.

Read the Arnold Schwarzenegger op-ed Medina was blowing back to here.

Comments

[Malto Dextrin]

SEIU needs to be PATCO'd.

[John-David]

SEIU must have a brutal vetting process to make upper management.

[Nooge]

Incoming migraine in 3...2...1...

[Timmy]

"democracy is an ugly thing"

Umm, isn't that why we have a constitution that defines a representative republic with limits on what laws the majority can impose on the minority?

[Tomcat1066]

The governor's obsession with 'waste' in public services distracts lawmakers from dealing with the state's crippling budget crisis.

Um...uh...yeah. This is just to fucking obvious.

[J sub D]

an attack on vital public services that children, seniors, people with disabilities and families need to maintain decent lives.

It's time for the governor to get serious and put away the political playbook of blame and distraction. He needs to focus on solving the immediate crisis -- instead of on his legislative legacy -- and work toward a compromise.

Right out of the sinecured public employee rhetoric stylebook.

[Fascitis Necrotizante]

urge... to... kill... RISING...

[P Brooks]

"No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top..."

[Ben Kenobi]

That reads a lot more like an Onion headline than something you would expect to see in a major newspaper.

[NAL]

"The governor's obsession with 'waste' in public services distracts lawmakers from dealing with the state's crippling budget crisis."

That sounds like something from a bad comedy...or from a person with absolutely no critical thinking ability.

[George Costanza]

That reads a lot more like an Onion headline than something you would expect to see in a major newspaper.

It's like going to the bathroom in front of a bunch of people -- and not caring.

[Rich]

Biology 101: Nothing can live on its own crippling budget crisis products.

[Silentz]

"The governor's obsession with 'waste' in public services distracts lawmakers from dealing with the state's crippling budget crisis."

But doesn't waste help create...meh nevermind, it's California. Logic moved out of that state years ago. Not sure where it moved to, but it sure ain't Kahlifohnya.

[Naga Sadow]

I wonder if its time for someone to ask Medina "tough questions" and upload his answers to youtube.

[stuartl]

Medina is making sense, hasn't every politician ever elected always promised to reduce waste in government? Government waste must have been fixed by now.

[P Brooks]

California should just create their own currency, and use that to pay their debts.

[Naga Sadow]

P Brooks,

But what would we call such a currency?

[TheZeitgeist]

Its kinda funny. All these unions...UAW, SEIU, etc. don't realize there's no money left in their respective host organisms anymore.

Not "no one's giving us enough money," but "there is no money to give us." Tough reality to adjust to for these guys, I'm sure. They obviously still don't grasp that situation yet.

They're in the Blame Someone mode, in this case the voters themselves. But unlike the halcyon old days, there is no option of forcing everyone back to the table, there JUST ISNT MONEY LEFT to wheel and deal over.

This is something the public unions have never had to deal with. All the laws, regulations, and tactics they have set up for themselves over the years assume there is money to be had. There is no playbook for "no money." Tragically hilarious.

I bet an audit of who gets the IOU's and who gets an actual check would breakdown nicely between the unionized getting the checks and the non-unionized getting the shaft, at least in so much as its possible with the dwindling funds.

[Paul]

This is something the public unions have never had to deal with. All the laws, regulations, and tactics they have set up for themselves over the years assume there is money to be had. There is no playbook for "no money." Tragically hilarious.

Tragically hilarious because there is money. You're thinking is myopic. There may not be any money left in California, but there is plenty of money elsewhere. Think "interstate commerce". Think of the importance of California's economy to the rest of the nation. They're coming after you and me next. Who cares if we don't actually live in California? That's a mere piddling detail.

Someone's pension is at stake and we've all seen just how nakedly corrupt the Obama administration is when it comes to Union payoff. This isn't even close to being over for the SEIU. What the SEIU gets from California is just the petty cash drawer. The Federal Government is the bank, and they're getting ready to make a very large withdrawal.

[P Brooks]

But what would we call such a currency?

Something simple, and to the point; how about the IOU?

[P Brooks]

The Looney, unfortunately, has already been taken.

[kilroy]

I wonder if Schwarzenegger remembers this:

Schwarzenegger promoting Milton Friedman

At about 20 seconds in. What a pussy he's become.

[TheZeitgeist]

"You're thinking is myopic. There may not be any money left in California, but there is plenty of money elsewhere. Think "interstate commerce". Think of the importance of California's economy to the rest of the nation."

Au contraire, the Administration's hands are tied. California - big as it is - is outnumbered by everyone else in the union. Paying off California's unions with Uncle Sugar would be political suicide for Comrade Obama and the gang. I guarantee California would be bailing TARP funds right now if Obama thought for a second it would be politically palatable in any context. In so much the importance of California is to the nation's economy is concerned, that's almost ALL California's private sector, which seems to be humming right along. Google, Intel, etc. seem to be doing fine. The biggest concern for the state's vast agricultural output is the dearth of cheap immigrant labor, not union labor.

The other dark cloud for the elites and their sycophants in California is people get a chance to notice that when the government is "under funded" and in "budget crisis" the sun DOESN'T burn out, contrary to claims otherwise the LA Times et al.

[Naga Sadow]

I was thinking the "Esquire". Sounds good, no?

[Rich]

How about the "Eureka"?

[TheZeitgeist]

"Something simple, and to the point; how about the IOU?"

Isn't that the unofficial name for "Federal Reserve Note?"

[Jack Thread]

(07-13) 04:00 PDT Washington -- Dick Peixoto planted hedges of fennel and flowering cilantro around his organic vegetable fields in the Pajaro Valley near Watsonville to harbor beneficial insects, an alternative to pesticides.

He has since ripped out such plants in the name of food safety, because his big customers demand sterile buffers around his crops. No vegetation. No water. No wildlife of any kind.

"I was driving by a field where a squirrel fed off the end of the field, and so 30 feet in we had to destroy the crop," he said. "On one field where a deer walked through, didn't eat anything, just walked through and you could see the tracks, we had to take out 30 feet on each side of the tracks and annihilate the crop."

In the verdant farmland surrounding Monterey Bay, a national marine sanctuary and one of the world's biological jewels, scorched-earth strategies are being imposed on hundreds of thousands of acres in the quest for an antiseptic field of greens. And the scheme is about to go national.

Invisible to a public that sees only the headlines of the latest food-safety scare - spinach, peppers and now cookie dough - ponds are being poisoned and bulldozed. Vegetation harboring pollinators and filtering storm runoff is being cleared. Fences and poison baits line wildlife corridors. Birds, frogs, mice and deer - and anything that shelters them - are caught in a raging battle in the Salinas Valley against E. coli O157:H7, a lethal, food-borne bacteria.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/07/13/MN0218DVJ8.DTL

[Jack Thread]

Here's the amazing part:

Invisible to a public that sees only the headlines of the latest food-safety scare - spinach, peppers and now cookie dough - ponds are being poisoned and bulldozed. Vegetation harboring pollinators and filtering storm runoff is being cleared. Fences and poison baits line wildlife corridors. Birds, frogs, mice and deer - and anything that shelters them - are caught in a raging battle in the Salinas Valley against E. coli O157:H7, a lethal, food-borne bacteria.

In pending legislation and in proposed federal regulations, the push for food safety butts up against the movement toward biologically diverse farming methods, while evidence suggests that industrial agriculture may be the bigger culprit.

[Paul]

The other dark cloud for the elites and their sycophants in California is people get a chance to notice that when the government is "under funded" and in "budget crisis" the sun DOESN'T burn out, contrary to claims otherwise the LA Times et al.

When the L.A. Times is telling us that the sun will no longer rise over the Golden State, what they're really saying is there's an SEIU member, somewhere, that might not get his pension. From what I've seen from the Obama administration, this would be severe enough for Obama to send in Federal Troops and put the whole state under Martial Law.

[One of Tony\'s Reason Rubes]

"They're coming after you and me next."

Ergo Card Check.

[One of Tony\'s Reason Rubes]

A name for California currency?

Seventh Generation 2-Ply.

[TheZeitgeist]

"When the L.A. Times is telling us that the sun will no longer rise over the Golden State, what they're really saying is there's an SEIU member, somewhere, that might not get his pension. From what I've seen from the Obama administration, this would be severe enough for Obama to send in Federal Troops and put the whole state under Martial Law."

First rule of politicians is "Must Get Re-Elected." This is what will prevent Obama from doing any such thing. When he's a lame duck though, maybe...

[JB]

Fuck the SEIU and fuck every member of the SEIU.

Unions are for retards.

[TheZeitgeist]

"Ergo Card Check."

I don't think its going to last even if it gets passed. A year of mandatory arbitration is going to detonate in the Dem's faces, and combined with the other schticks is going to one-term Obama right out of here. I almost hope it passes...

[Rhywun]

From what I've seen from the Obama administration, this would be severe enough for Obama to send in Federal Troops and put the whole state under Martial Law.

If that's what it takes... I don't think there's any mechanism for the government to break these contracts they fall for, is there?

[TheZeitgeist]

How Obama can bail his puppet-masters out in California is interesting to think about, because undoubtedly that is what they are thinking about.

Ironically, the SEC essentially making those IOU's regulated securities probably crimps the market for them more than legitimizes them.

What's the term on the IOU's? For Obama, this thing isn't going to go away. I noticed a few articles last week about TARP funds just laying around now, unspent. The Treasury Secretary of course is arguing that they should be under his discretion as a personal slush-fund, but Congress I am sure wants to blow the money too.

I am guessing in the back rooms, union halls, and the White House there is scheming to get the last of the TARP slush to their favored sons. Maybe somehow to California, but dressed up as some "State Relief Fund" with some nominal, ceremonial handouts to other states perhaps? I am sure there is midnight oil being burned on this.

[ChrisO]

I wonder if Schwarzenegger remembers this:

Schwarzenegger promoting Milton Friedman

At about 20 seconds in. What a pussy he's become.

He actually did try to rein in spending, but the citizenry voted down his ballot measures, and the legislature has no interest in cutting spending.