Last June 27, 2011, State
Senator Anthony Cannella, R-Ceres,
had a guest commentary in the Monterey Herald in which he declared
California's pension system was broken and requires fixing but hastened to add:
". . . the whole process confirms that real pension reform isn't going to
happen legislatively. Real pension
reform must happen by a vote of the people." This makes you wonder why bother to elect any State
Legislator if solving serious budgetary problems is not a part of their sworn
duties.
Senator Cannella goes on to write: "However, I, along with the rest of the state, support the collective bargaining process . . . etc,etc,etc." There is little doubt the powerful unions for prison and public safety personnel, plus a degree of greed, has led the CalPERS pension and health care systems down the road to bankruptcy; however, the over-crowded prisons, the guards' excessive overtime pay, the outrageous cost of prison medical care, and the financial nightmare in handling violent sexual predators - this is a direct result of poor management. Gee - I guess the voters of the State will have to solve this problem as well . Better yet, why not move excess prisoners to local jurisdictions so our elected State officials don't have to worry about it. I ask again, what is it that our Legislators do?
To
be fair, Senator Cannella's remarks reveal the disturbing reality that not only
is California's pensions system broken, but our State government is broken as
well. Our Legislators too often
bring an inflexible agenda to the State Capital and are not willing
to act in a manner which best serves the interest of everyone in the
State.
According
to a recent Los Angeles Times news article, some State legislators offered a
proposal that local jurisdictions ought to be granted the ability to tax
cigarettes, sugary drinks, liquor and oil pumped from the ground in order to
make up for the money the State has taken away from our local communities and
schools. There is little doubt our
broken State government cannot handle its own financial affairs, but if they
can just get us local folks to tax ourselves, then the State can continue to
seize local funds to make up for their own malfeasance.
The
end result requires local taxpayers to solve the pension and budgetary problems
of our State, so why is it that we need these legislators? Possibly, each county ought to keep all
property taxes, sales and use taxes, liquor, vehicle license fees,
transportation, fuel taxes and a host of other taxes and give the State
whatever is left over! This sounds
fair to me.