It’s been over a month since the beginning of the fiscal year and California still doesn’t have a budget. As the prospect for passing a sensible budget before the end of the year continues to vanish, Sacramento Democrats refuse to include the pension reform that this state so desperately needs. If you aren’t rankled by bloated bureaucratic salaries and state pensions large enough to rival that of the NFL’s compensation packages, then I guess we all should turn our heads the other way and continue to accept the unacceptable.
California can’t afford the reckless spending that has plagued our economy for decades, and this time the unions will have to give. Working families can’t afford the suggested tax increases, and borrowing more money when California’s credit rating is already in the tank, doesn’t make much sense either. Why can’t the Democrat controlled legislature understand that its citizenry has already been taxed to the point of exhaustion? Apparently it must not matter to them. They just don't get that you can’t spend what you don’t have.
The union grip over the capitol is greater than I had imagined – union cronies will stop at nothing to prove you wrong and attempt to squeeze blood out of a turnip by refusing to compromise. I’m not sure I understand how anyone can be exempt from tightening their belts. Most sensible Californian’s have already made the necessary adjustments to their spending habits, but I fear that this is just the quiet before the storm – eventually, no matter how much you prepare, the next round of taxes increases will push you and other hard working tax-paying families to the brink of extinction.
The union stall on the budget process reminds me of this scene from the movie Click, where Adam Sandler tries to convince David Hasslehoff to give him a raise, because he “spent money [he doesn’t] have.”
Coming up with a sensible budget is no easy task (it should be but unions are involved)but not having a budget this late is outrageous. The common sense solution that most Californians are looking for is simple -- pension reform. I for one am tired of the Democrat knee-jerk reaction to tax and spend. We deserve better than that.
What is going on with the folks who run the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People? These days, it seems like they’re more concerned with making headlines than they are advancing anything. Let me cite three recent examples. They adopted a resolution to condemn the racist elements of the Tea Party movement. The California chapter of the NAACP came out in favor of a ballot measure to legalize marijuana. And that same chapter’s president, Alice Huffman, has supported studying whether to convert Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch into a state park. It’s not clear to me how any of these actions follow the NAACP’s mission statement to “eliminate racial hatred and discrimination.”
Let’s start with the Tea Party resolution. This would make sense if there was any clear indication that the Tea Party movement is indeed racist at its core. But I’m struggling to understand why the NAACP seems intent on framing the Tea Party movement in racist terms. If any organization should have a fundamental understanding of civil unrest, it should be the NAACP, right?
It’s not surprising that the mainstream media is salivating over the prospect of labeling the Tea Party movement as racist, but I’ve been to more than one Tea Party event, and felt not one inkling of racist motivation or intent among the people attending. From everything I see, the Tea Party movement is about reducing taxes, checking federal government efforts to skirt the Constitution, and identify waste and fraud. How is that racist?
Ironically, by focusing on the still evolving Tea Party movement, the NAACP seems to be turning into the same thing it’s historically fought against, labeling people it simply doesn’t understand.
In fact, by passing an anti Tea Party resolution, the NAACP is implying it has transcended racism, that its members are beyond racist thought and action, flawlessly objective. So how would the NAACP react if another organization passed a resolution condemning the racist elements of the NAACP? How would its members feel if they were lumped into the same category as the National Black Panther Party? I have no doubt that if I were to start looking, I could find a line in the NAACP bylaws, or one person holding a race-tinged sign at an NAACP rally, then exploit that image to garner national headlines and tar the good works of the NAACP.
Unfortunately, that’s all the Tea Party resolution amounts to.
My same concern extends to the California chapter of the NCAAP and its ludicrous arguments in favor of legalizing marijuana. If anyone should aware of the rampage and mayhem illicit drugs have caused in the African-American community, it should be the NAACP. Instead of continuing attempts to curb the amount of drug use that goes on in poorer urban environments, the NAACP has decided that it is more convenient to focus on minority arrest rates. But regardless of how they spin their concern, legal or illegal, marijuana is a damaging, mind-altering substance. Making it legal will just lead to more drug abuse, the last thing the African-American community needs or can ever afford.
And then to cap it off, California NAACP President Alice Huffman went on record this week supporting a proposal to covert Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch into a state park. I admire Michael’s artistic contributions to American pop culture. But California is in a budget crisis. People need jobs and good schools, and clean safe parks in our own communities right now. This act, perhaps more than any other, indicates the desperation of the NAACP’s leadership to crowd into a news cycle and show to everyone that it’s still there, that it still counts.
I am truly saddened by this direction of the NAACP. Instead of providing solutions to problems, it’s promoting weak, ill-conceived, misguided resolutions that echo the same dark-age philosophies and attitudes the organization was founded to overcome.
As seen in FlashReport.org “California Lawmakers Consider License Plates that Flash Ads”-- Los Angeles Times, June 29th, 2010
Earlier this week, the Assembly Transportation Committee voted unanimously to pass along a bill authorizing to study whether selling advertising space on digitally-changeable license plates could produce enough money to help close California’s multi-billion dollar budget deficit. Which begs the question: why stop there? If, after decades of Democrat-dominated malfeasance, the state is so broke it’s actually considering the financial merits of placing what are essentially millions of little flat screen televisions on the backs of moving vehicles, our government has obviously lost all sense of perspective.
After all, if we’re willing to add millions of little distractions to our roadways in the quest for new state revenues, can big distractions be far behind? And if we’re seriously contemplating selling our license plates, why not the Full Monty? Let’s put every available money-making idea on the table. Go big or go broke, is what I say.
So how about this: how about special projectors that turn your auto’s entire rear window into a rolling billboard? Unlike the license plate proposal, rear window ads wouldn’t force drivers to look down while they take their eyes off the road to check out the two-for-one sale at the local nursery.
And why stop with vehicles? There are any number of state-owned edifices advertisers must surely be slathering over to potentially hawk their wares. For instance, how about projecting ads onto one of those big prison walls on Alcatraz? What a thrill that would add for tourists visiting San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. How about adding strings of programmable LED’s onto the Golden Gate Bridge? Tourists flying into Bay Area airports could catch up on the latest rental car specials, provided those lingering San Francisco sunsets don’t spoil their view.
Closer to home for lawmakers, what’s good for the goose is no doubt good for the gander. You know those state-owned vehicles our lawmakers drive at taxpayer expense? Why not shrink wrap those cars, cloaking them in the same sort of ads we see on city buses? In fact, why stop with lawmakers? I’ll bet there’s a hefty sponsorship contract tailor-made for the thousands of state owned vehicles now used for “official business.”
Getting back to Sacramento, there’s product placement opportunities galore inside the state capitol. Imagine the pride of escorting our out-of state residents on a tour that includes the Senate and Assembly galleries, as we gaze down on the traditional red and green carpets. Only now, those carpets would be embossed with the logo for a cleaning product, the “Official Stain Lifter of the California Legislature!”
And why stop with inanimate objects when there’s potentially 120 walking billboards in the form of state lawmakers. Really, what’s the harm in dressing our legislators in suits and dresses plastered with sponsor patches like a NASCAR racing suit? I don’t see a down side, not when there’s a perennial budget problem and our children’s future is at stake.
Or--and here’s the really crazy idea—how about our state lawmakers actually make an effort to operate the state within its current means. You know, the way the rest of us manage the accounts of our own homes and businesses. Instead of constantly concocting new methods to fill government coffers, they could look for ways to stretch our existing tax revenues. It might not be enough to close California’s $20 billion budget gap, but it would be a good start, even though it’s a process our Democrat-dominated legislature has consistently taken pains to avoid. And it’s definitely a better idea than posting ads where license plates belong. You can reach Rob Griffith at rgriffith@cagop.org
California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring earlier this week dropped by the Sacramento Press Club to deliver a routine update of California’s political landscape and discuss the historic diversity of the Republican party ticket.
His Democrat counterpart John Burton was also invited to the event which is summarized in an article from Cal Buzz.
Highlights from the event include Chairman Nehring delivering a humorous yet poignant summary of the Democrat top ticket:
“When Boxer was first elected to Congress in 1982, ‘The A-Team’ was a TV show and not in a movie, and I think Jerry Brown’s registration card was in Roman numerals.”
Democrats in Sacramento have made it abundantly clear that they aren’t being held accountable for their actions, and they like it like that. The Democrat-dominated legislature has once again missed its budget deadline, even while a $19.5 billion deficit looms overhead.
The Democrats are a relying on their lack of accountability to glide around the budget. But the truth of the matter is these legislators are supposed to be our public servants. They’re supposed to be working for us, not the other way around. California’s economic plight has been a reality check; most responsible citizens have made the necessary cutbacks, tightened our belts, and have become much more fiscally responsible.
So why is there such an outcry when we expect our public servants to do the same thing? The simple answer is, Democrats and the state worker unions have been in bed together for so long, they’ve forgotten anybody else is in the room. They’ve forgotten why we, the people who hired them and put them in Sacramento to serve the people, to protect the common good, to exercise wisdom, restraint and responsibility especially in times of distress.
Apparently, Sacramento Democrats have lost the statesman mentality.
Statesmen are elected officials who exhibit a quality of selflessness, the spirit of caring for the whole. But that’s not the image that comes to mind when I think of Sacramento Democrats. All I see from Democrats today is runaway spending, the call to implement more taxes, more empty promises, and long winded speeches full of excuses but devoid of solutions.
It is time we hold the majority party accountable for the government they’ve made unaffordable for you and me. If millions of Californians can cut back expenses and still carry on, so can state government. No one should be exempt from saving the state and keeping it from becoming the next Greece. But this is going to be tough. As bed partners, Democrats and unions have poisoned the state’s work force to believe they’re entitled to regularly scheduled raises and pay increases. Yes, I said entitled.
You should know that for the average state worker, a raise is something drastically different from a cost of living increase. For most of us, a raise is something we earn. For state workers, it’s something fought for by their hired thugs at the bargaining table. For them, a raise should be automatic, that they’re losing money if they don’t get one. And the grip they have on the Democratic lawmakers who ratify their union contracts is tighter than a Bob Etheridge headlock. The instant anyone tries to draw a connection between getting a raise and increased productivity, the Democrats become more charmingly evasive than a used car salesman.
I can’t take that ride.
It’s about time Democrats ask themselves what THEY can do for their state, not what their state can do for them. Everyone is responsible for California; Democrats are no exception to the rule.
'Who Are You' Going to Believe, Me or Your Own Eyes?
U.S. Representative Bob Etheridge (D-NC) must have forgotten something important about the college student he so viciously attacked – he’s someone who pays his salary. The question asked of Rep. Etheridge is a legitimate question, “Do you fully support the Obama agenda?”
What’s even more appalling than watching a member of Congress bullying a student, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck , then switching to a head lock, is the ridiculous spin from the Washington Post describing this uncalled for attack as a hug.
Yes… a hug.
Next time I am in North Carolina, remind me NOT to ask any public servant any questions about their ideological preferences. Better still, remind me never to ask a Congressman for a hug.
At long last, mainstream media that cover the state capitol are starting to catch on that it’s not the number of dollars we spend on education that counts, it’s how those dollars are spent. In a Sacramento Bee Editorial published on May 22nd, the Bee took on the issue of choosing which teachers should be kept on as school districts statewide grapple with how they’re going to cut spending.
It’s about time, no, it’s long overdue, that we start holding teachers accountable for what comes out of their classrooms.
Teachers unions have successfully wiped out any accountability between teacher pay and what goes on in the classroom. Career Teachers are so used to automatic raises and benefit bumps, that even suggesting they should be graded on how well they teach is met with excuses, evasions, and outright hostility.
Recent letters from teachers in response to the Bee Editorial demonstrate their hostile attitude toward *gasp* having their workplace efforts evaluated as if they were mere mortals. A self-described social science teacher claimed that layoffs based on performance would infringe on his “rights” as a civil service employee. Is this social science teacher not aware all citizens enjoy equal rights, regardless of who employs them? He goes on to claim that seniority and tenure protections are essential to academic freedom, and to protect teachers from age discrimination and retaliation for labor union actions. You’d think a social science teacher would know that separate laws guarantee academic freedom for teachers, as well as protections from age discrimination and for labor organizing.
No wonder he doesn’t want anyone checking his work.
In another letter, there’s the usual party line that seniority and tenures rules “protect all teachers from the whims of supervisors and school boards.” Come again? Someone needs to remind this crowd that school board members are elected by the public, who in turn hire the Superintendents that manage our public schools. Is that what’s being taught in our classroom? That decisions made by duly-elected public officials are mere whims?
If you want to know why schools are failing our kids, all you really have to do is look at the attitudes evident behind these letters. Protected not just by civil service work rules but by union-negotiated labor contracts, public school teachers (with the exception of non-union charter schools) have lost all appreciation for the workplace realities they’re supposedly preparing our students for. The teacher who goes straight from earning a teaching credential into public school employment is rapidly enveloped into a collectivist work environment. In teacher land, raises are based on how loudly the group shouts at the bargaining table. Raises and classroom placement aren’t based excellence or exceptional performance. In fact, they’re forbidden by contract. Whoever it was that first said “90 percent of success is just showing up” must have been a teacher. Those of us competing for jobs and raises in the real job market know just how silly that sounds.
Instead, teacher salaries and work assignments are based on time on the job. Is it any wonder 90 percent of new teachers, (often the hardest working and most enthusiastic) leave teaching within three years?
Everyone can remember lousy teachers from their own school experience, but firing even the most worthless teachers requires “due process,” a lengthy and expensive process costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s a tall expense for cash-strapped districts even in the best of times. The inability to fire the worst members of any work force is a guarantee for mediocrity among the rest.
Until we break the union-stranglehold over our public school system, our students will be denied the opportunity to learn from teachers whose own work experience demands and instills excellence.
