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#1
03-10-2011, 12:40 PM
 Real numbers and info: Public Unions, State Budgets, and Commentary
I live in California, and some people argue it's much worse here in CA, and it's not necessarily so bad in Wisconsin for them to take drastic measures against the public unions, because their budget shortfall is only $3.6B (vs CA's $26B). I disagree WI is that much different. And I agree with taking action against Public Unions. Please read (not skim) along.----------- Comparing WI to CA, and discussing budgets  Wisconsin's GDP in 2010: 251,400 (in $ millions) Current State Budget Shortfall: $3.6B Ratio of Budget Shortfall to State GDP: 1:69.8 Ratio of Budget Shortfall to 2009 Population: $637:1 The last stat implies that every (legal) citizen of Wisconsin shares responsibility for over $44K in this shortfall, if the population were asked to pay for it (someone has to). California's GDP in 2010: 1,936,400 (in $ millions) State Budget Shortfall: $26B Ratio of Budget Shortfall to State GDP: 1:74.5 Ratio of Budget Shortfall to State Population: $703:1 These numbers in CA look eerily similar to Wisconsin, when you adjust to the gross products of the states, as well as to the populations. Though, CA is still a bit worse.Discussing where to cut budgets, and why public unions / teachers are targeted % of CA budget attributed to Education: 40% % of CA Education budget attributed to salaries/benefits/pensions: 80% Therefore, % of budget attributed to education salaries/benefits/pensions: 32% $240B pension shortfall (underfunding) of CA pensions across all agencies. So 1/3 of the CA budget is committed to teacher salaries/benefits, and yet we still have a known total pension system shortfall of $240B which will continue to widen without action. (*other sources put the pension liability between $300-400B, so I'm sticking to the lesser number from the independent research group). California's primary budget liabilities:
We cannot trim costs at the margins (i.e. a few million, or even hundred million, here or there). We cannot kick the can down the road, with false gains such as short term gains from furloughs that actually cause a new $1B shortfall because furlough days are worked regardless and used as time-off days, saving actual time off days that can be cashed out later.DEBATE about Public Unions from Newsweek: YES [newsweek.com] here.----------- Sources: Little Hoover Commission [ca.gov] - CA Pension underfunding data. Yahoo! Finance [yahoo.com] - Federal taxpayer net liabilities US Census Bureau [census.gov] - 2009 Wisconsin population US Census Bureau [census.gov] - 2009 California population Bizjournals [bizjournals.com] - Just one of a million articles confirming CA's $26B deficit. Wisconsin Budget Project [blogspot.com] - WI's $3.6B deficit through 2013 Please refrain from debating on word syntax/symantics or political party fanboy-isms, it clutters these podium threads. We all know that politicians of all parties use similar tactics, receive lobbyist / special interest $, and are responsible for creating the budget deficits. Last edited by Scoundrel; 03-10-2011 at 01:50 PM.. |
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) if we don't pay more taxes. And we should not cut out those core safety net programs in the prior sentence.
Multi-Quote| 03-10-2011, 12:40 PM | |
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#2
03-10-2011, 12:54 PM
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I know two conservative CA teachers that are married. One is a special ed teacher and one is a middle school teacher. Both make very good money. Both agree that teachers are overpaid and that they are too protected. Both agree that many teachers are ineffective and should be fired. Both describe themselves as good teachers that could do better if only they could get rid of the bad teachers.
In a room without the other, both have told me that they "could see" the other one getting fired if CA got rid of under performing teachers. 
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#3
03-10-2011, 01:04 PM
Your public sector workers may be overpaid, but they are also the most overworked pubic servants in the country stuck in a state with some of the absolute highest unemployment percentages in the nation. For the 7th largest economy on Earth, you are in some deep shit, my friend, and there is nowhere to go. CA can't continue to cut public employee numbers without massive cutbacks in services. Considering Police and Fire make up 2/3 of most CA local budgets for employees, how many cops and fire fighters can you afford to lose in an attempt to balance your budgetary woes? I believe you also have one of the highest per capitas in the country, along with one of the highest costs of living overall. You have a ginormous prisons problem, due to the many illegal immigrant criminals flooding your state - which Washington has a hand in not fixing. You have extraordinarily high medicaid costs due to the same illegal immigrant problem. Might I suggest CA stop being so damn PC and start booting out anyone without a green card or citizenship? It'd do you a world of good and maybe you can finally afford to keep the peace and prevent forest fires. (Don't get me started on the stupidity of living in the hills, that's just plain D>U>M>B and begging to get your house burned down when the Santa Anas start blowing.) Wisconsin has a much better picture with regard to unemployment, per capita income, and public employee costs. We rank among the lowest costs per public servant in the country, well below the national average, so we can afford to keep more employed. Our $3,6B deficit is about 1/4 of the entire state budget total for 2011. 25% or so is a manageable number. Without checking I would suspect CA is in far worse shape, percentage of the budget-wise, than Wisconsin, making us VERY different animals right from the git-go. Last edited by Anonymouse; 03-10-2011 at 01:11 PM.. |
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#4
03-10-2011, 01:23 PM
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Not getting into the rest of the analysis, the ratios in the OP are wrong. The first ratio is reversed (just a minor quibble), but the second is comparing the wrong numbers.
If you compare Wisconsin's GDP to its population (about 5.5M), you get the number shown of about $44K - this their yearly GDP per capita, which makes sense. But if you compare the budget shortfall to its population, you get just over $600. Which is nothing to cheer about, but it's not nearly as dire a sum. It also should be noted whether the shortfalls represent a yearly period or an 18-month period (or something different); I didn't bother to check on that. |
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#5
03-10-2011, 01:29 PM
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#6
03-10-2011, 01:33 PM
Some facts: The United States is a Country. California is a state in the United States. The Sky is Blue.. Logical Appeal: You agree to install my kitchen cabinets for $5000, I pay you an $2000 advance with the rest when you finish the job. During this time I spend all my money on the strip clubs with my rich uncle. So, you finish up do an ok job and come to collect the money, but I have already spent it and find out my hours are getting cut in half. Do I still owe you the money? I will be the first to admit, public sector wages and pensions will need to be reworked, but using the excuse "I spent all the money I was supposed to put away for your pension on tax cuts to the rich" is a piss poor excuse. |
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#7
03-10-2011, 01:46 PM
When the unions endorsed the Democratic politicians who did not put away money for those pensions, its not a piss poor excuse at all. The NJEA has lined up behind the Democratic party for 20 years here. Not once has a Democratic governor made an adequate pension contribution; in fact, in 2003-2005 they didn't save a dime. Yet they got NJEA endorsements anyway... |
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#8
03-10-2011, 01:47 PM
Comparably they are still close numbers to each other (600 and 700). Clearly not those large numbers, but why should every person have to pay the difference? If about half the citizens do not have tax liabilities (at least federal), then each person that the government sees capable of contributing, if equally distributed among them, would be paying $1200 - $1400. That would only fix the shortfall in the short term, and we'd continue to be upside down in expenditures vs incoming revenue. So do we continue increasing taxes and feeding the spending beasts, or do we bring spending back under control? Last edited by Scoundrel; 03-10-2011 at 01:53 PM.. Reason: Added second fix as well. |
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#9
03-10-2011, 02:29 PM
 In 2009 [ccsce.com] they are 6th (still very low), and comparison is 477 vs national average of 542. If you assume that most states do not have the illegal population that California has (2,600,000 [laalmanac.com] in 2009), and figure in that population to california's population (because illegals here receive equal or often times more benefits that citizens -- offline this topic please, or PM me and I'll make a new thread)... you have a new ratio to 10,000 of 510. Higher, but still not the national average.
 Given that the jobs are primarily union-based, there are hours restrictions same as other states, and regardless there are overtime rules.
But we also give freebies to illegals, we pay $45K per prisoner compared to the teens of K for other states (and WHY?), and according to budget numbers, teacher salaries are the biggest chunk and are unreasonably much higher than 49 other states, for much worse results (my turn to say to teachers, think of the kids, seriously). This is where we need to cut first.
Take Los Angeles for example. They make up 69% of unrestricted revenues. And 28.5 + 9.3 = 37.8% of 2010-2011 Adopted Budget [ca.us] Money Use. Pages 9-10.The Little Hoover report I cited in my sources in the OP indicates that "cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose prepare to spend one third of their operating budgets on retirement costs." Pensions cost just as much as fire and police. We need fire and police. We can't justify the pensions that click in at age 55 and have no caps, let alone the fact that the majority private sector jobs no longer offer pensions and so there is no competitive reason for them in the public sector.
 I agree with you. Thanks.
Of the WI operating budget [wispolitics.com] for 2011-2012, of $29.261B, 3.6B is 12.3% (see page 31). For CA, it's 2011-2012 operating budget [ca.gov] is $100.7B, 26B is obviously roughly 26% without using a calculator (see page 10). |
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#10
03-10-2011, 02:35 PM
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My primary point, really, is that if:
...that any state with high liabilities / underfunding due to unions, public salaries, and pensions, needs to look seriously at fixing that. We can't keep trimming at margins. We have to look at what eats the biggest chunks of our state budgets. Specifically, public unions are a major problem. Public unions redistribute taxpayer wealth, unlike private unions who bargain for shared profits. Public unions bargain with taxpayer money in order to achieve larger sums of taxpayer money and cause unsustainable debts. With private unions, both sides of the bargaining table carry a gun (i.e. have leverage and give and take over a shared resource -- profits). Governments are a monopoly. And only one side brings the ammo -- the unions. They spend the dues (coming from state wages which comes from taxpayer money), buy off the politicians with that money, and in turn get much more taxpayer money. The taxpayers are not even present at the bargaining table, and we are powerless. We can vote in/out politicians, but that doesn't solve the conflict of interest that leads to the problem described above, and just gets new politicians into the game. |
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#11
03-10-2011, 03:52 PM
And, by the way, the term is "undocumented worker." (/sarcasm off) Joe Biden says Buy a Shotgun! Wackiness ensues! [youtu.be]
Keynesians have "stimulus spent" $16 trillion dollars. Where are the jobs? Are you on Obama's Little List? [youtube.com] The biggest tax no one talks about [washingtontimes.com] "George Ought to Help" [youtube.com] Keynes vs Hayek economics rap battle [youtube.com] How the GOP stole the nomination [examiner.com] |
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#12
03-10-2011, 06:29 PM
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#13
03-10-2011, 06:38 PM
Please substitute - "spend money on tax cuts", to "Decrease projected revenue generation in an effort to provide a budget deficit in which to use as an excuse to cut present obligations" |
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#14
03-10-2011, 07:22 PM
Step 4. Cook bacon, everything should have a step for bacon |
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#15
03-11-2011, 03:39 AM
I got the public employees per 10,000 residents figure from another source and just accepted that CA has the highest ratio of all states. I did not really question it given the massive illegal problem there that may raise that ratio near the top of the list of fewest to serve the mostest. CA unemployment figures are also affected for that reason. The chart I used in another thread listed CA's unemployment - TRUE unemployment, above 14% & WI at 7.9%-ish. Given the large number of services CA does provide it's citizens and regulation up the wazoo, I have to believe your public employees ARE doing more than similarly classified public employees in other states - or you couldn't deliver so much with so few. Regulation and safety does seem a bit "out there" and excessive for most of us in the rest of the country, but I applaud CA for being concerned enough to care for the safety of it's residents like they do. I sure don't envy you the cost of it though. Last edited by Anonymouse; 03-11-2011 at 03:45 AM.. |
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