This year, the San Jose City Council is forced to make drastic cuts. Unfortunately, the city of San Jose has had a deficit for the last decade even before the Great Recession. In fact, even without the recession, San Jose’s financial obligations are significantly higher then revenues coming into the city.
As a result current elected officials are left with trade offs often having to pit necessary services against each other. This year the deficit is $118 million. This is more then the entire library, transportation, planning, code enforcement, information technology, city attorney and public works departments combined.
The purpose of the survey is to gauge your thoughts about what means the most to you knowing that difficult decisions are going to be made and for you to share your thoughts on how the city can save and make money.
For example, there are alternative cost savings ideas that I support like second-tier pensions for new employees the taxpayer can afford, selling the Hayes Mansion, selling one of three golf courses, requiring affordable housing to pay property taxes, outsourcing cleaning/maintenance to save money, capping accrued sick leave payouts, to name a few. These will take longer to implement, however. If our City would have considered these items when I first discussed them, we would benefit from the cost-savings today.
This survey covers choices that must be made by June 4. The Council and all non-union personnel have taken a 10 percent pay cut and have requested that all of the 11 employee labor unions do the same so we can bypass massive layoffs—thus we would be able to provide expected services to residents. A 10 percent pay cut from all employees will help; however we would still be left with an approximate $60 million deficit.
The survey closes May 30 at noon. Survey results will be published on May 31 on SanJoseInside.com
CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SAN JOSE CITY BUDGET SURVEY.
> The Council and all non-union personnel have taken a 10 percent pay cut and have requested that all of the 11 employee labor unions do the same so we can bypass massive layoffs. . . .
And which bodily orifice did the unions tell the Council to cram their 10 percent pay cut into?
For crimininy sakes, Pierluigi! YOU ARE THE GOVERNMENT.
You don’t “request” city employees to “accept” a pay cut. You TELL THEM that you are imposing a pay cut. And all those NOT accepting the pay cut should signify their disapproval by raising their right hand and saying “I RESIGN”.
You and the rest of the Council seem to be behaving as if government employee unions are a “co-equal” branch of govenment. Not in my civics book.
Sooner or later, someone is going to organize a voter initiative to prohibit governments from entering into labor contracts with unions. Such agreements are a clear violation of “equal protection” for non-union employees and non-union voters and taxpayers.
When the unions elect a union stooge to government, and the stooge is at the bargaining table negotiating with the unions, it is a conflict of interest and the public gets SCREWED!!!
“Requesting” unions to take a pay cut is like asking hyenas to stop eating meat.
During the era of strong unions, the middle class grew, and the gap between the upper and lower shrank. That started changing back 30 years ago. Your concept of competent Civil Service is so distorted and hateful, and lame. Mr. Liberty, do you even know what portion of your paycheck goes to cops each year, and what pittance goes to all of the other Union dogs? Lets just outsource or go minimum wage! And to be consistent, the same for those government regulators of mining safety and offshore drilling.
I read in THE WG Resident that there will be a meeting today with Colette Crutcher, “the artist selected to create public art for the new Fire Station No. 37 in WG.”
In tough budget times the firestation needs only firefighters and proper equipment. It does NOT need public art.
Take that money and put it to better use. If it’s dedicated money, UNdedicate it and put it in the general fund.
I’d like to know why there is a new fire station at all, when there is only 1 police building for the entire city, and that building is falling apart and outdated.
The employees’ pension fundS guarantee an 8% rate of return EACH YEAR. If it isn’t met—and I doubt that it was met even half the time—the general fund makes up the difference.
8% is an outrageously high gauaranteed annual rate of return. That needs to be amended. Indeed, why should anyone GUARANTEE any rate of return? Does your broker guarantee that?
In bad times all of us private sector folks suffer in the market, but not the public employees. Good times and bad they just keep getting more.
That has to stop.
I’d shure like to know the public officials names who “negotiated” that deal, so that I can vote them out of every office they try to win.
In good times and bad, govt workers are always under payed. In good times they are ignored and in bad times they are the easy target. Do you realize that govt employees are not able to collect any social security benefits in retirement. Even when many have paid into the system for many years while working non govt jobs. An 8% rate of return over the long run is nothing compared to what is available to general industry employees. If you want to vote someone out start with Reed and Luigi
Wrongerer,
A parasite is only successful if it doesn’t kill its host. You and your fellow workers are bankrupting this city. With luck, your allies in City Hall will be replaced before you’re allowed to suck our tax dollars completely dry.
johnmichael o’connor made a good point. At a meeting at the Willow’s Senior Center regarding the new fire station prior to the elections, they said if they didn’t spend the money, they’d lose it. With such a philosophy no wonder we have financial problems.
I have heard it bandied about (from officers in the department) that police and fire unions would rather keep their high pay and benefits and let their fellow officers and fire fighters suffer being laid off than take the 10% cut themselves. Then they masquerade as self righteous service providers who care only for public safety and not just self serving,tax payer provided pocket liners.
Some one in government needs to speak up and LEAD!
Our city “leaders” lead? What a concept. They are afraid of the unions, so how can they lead?
And why exactly would a majority of the officers come forward and confide this to you?
Please read what I wrote. I said officers in the department. NEVER did I say a majority. Yiou seems to be a bit reactionary like so many others that read this blog.
You may have spoke to a few officers who said this, which is questionable, but they do not speak for, nor represent the majority of the police or fire unions, which is what you implied.
Wondering,
Just wondering how you made that flying leap from, “I have heard it bandied about from officers in the department…” to “… a majority of the officers?”
Wish I could do that sort of thing and keep a straight face.
PLO: There are some problems with the survey that you should fix.
I just tried to fill out the survey, but gave up in frustration. On some of the questions when you click your answer, it eliminates the answers to previous questions UNLESS you instead select another answer to the earlier question. It’s like it will only accept your answers if you vote the “correct” way.
Probably just a technical glitch with Survey Monkey, but it comes off looking like a rigged poll.
Hi Reader,
The questions require ranking so a different number must be selected and therefore one cannot use the same number twice thus ranking.
From my text above on the survey:
“As a result current elected officials are left with trade offs often having to pit necessary services against each other.”
Thanks and would enjoy your input on the balance of the questions.
A lot of the services in the survey do not qualify as “necessary” in my mind.
I would have eliminated all four of the items in the very first question where we were asked to rank. The survey should have allowed us to say than all of the categories were unimportant to voters.
THe survey was poorly drafted, or perhaps cleverly drafted to avoid a result unpalatable to the drafter.
Send out another survey where we can tell you ALL the things we’d like curtailed or eliminated. I’d bet the result would be far different than it will be with the survey as drafted.
Pierluigi,
I’m glad you put out these surveys, but I’m extremely skeptical that we’ll see any action. Let’s say the results overwhelmingly support fixing the city employee pension system (Question 15), as I suspect they will (unless those who benefit from this mess push all their members to respond). Who is going to stand up to the unions?
Pierluigi,
I honestly don’t like the way you all are pitting employees against one another. It is just wrong and is hurting employees moral and the workplace is filled with fear. Please re-think this across the board 10% cut. Council Aides earn very low wages as it is, and employee monetary inputs into benefits are very high. Some Aides only make $28K a year! A 10% cut on a salary like that is unfair and excessive! Cut out the fat for God’s sake. Lighten the overpaid department heads by laying them off. And please stop misleading people into thinking ZERO layoffs will happen if employees take a 10% pay cut. It’s dishonest and very misleading.
Also, you were at Council Member Constant’s public budget forum with us last year, and you know that the City Manager’s Office isn’t complying with the requests of citizen’s wishes, is making recommendations for cuts that are ridiculous, and misleads not only you, but the public on the budget. If you Council Members can’t follow the budget accurately how can you make proper choices in the first place?
As to binding arbitration: You know very well that the arbitrator makes decisions based on the actual holdings of the city. Let’s stop pretending otherwise. They get to view the true budget and what money the city has in its coffers! Please stop misleading the public on the importance of binding arbitration, and remember we voted it in. Contracts between employees and the city are made in “good faith, and are agreed upon before they are in stone. Unlike other Unions Police and Fire CAN NOT strike even if they were only receiving $5.00 an hour, so let’s stop acting like these employees are or were trying to pull a fast one on taxpayers please.
Taxpayers have been paying for services we haven’t been receiving for decades! Please stop acting like we have any say or choice on budget decisions. We don’t. You guys are going to do what you’re going to do regardless of what we want.
Why not sell all 3 city owned golf courses?
Hi Steve,
2 of the 3 golf courses require a citywide vote since they are classified as parkland. One of them Rancho del Pueblo is not parkland and could be sold with 6 votes on the Council. This would leave San Jose with two 18 hole golf courses and several private golf courses.
Pierluigi
> Why not sell all 3 city owned golf courses?
Hmmmm.
Interesting idea.
1. Substantial one-time revenue (probably immediately claimed by the unions for pay raises).
2. Return of significant amounts of land to the tax rolls.
If there really is a demand for golf courses, I’m sure the new owners would upgrade the courses and improve their operations.
And if there is no demand for the golf courses, what the hell is the city doing trying to operate these turkeys?
And another thing: it occurs to me that the city must be losing a lot of potential property tax revenue from all the land that is tied up in “green space” and “open space preserves”.
Is there anything the city can do so start making the environmental aristocrats pay taxes on their lavish, legally fictitious estates?
Where are the buyers?
Courses all over the Bay Area are offering deep discounts, even Pebble Beach is running specials; private courses are losing members and initiation fees have dropped faster than the housing market.
There is no market for golf courses now.
I played SJ Muni this morning. In the 3.5 hours it took my playing partner and I to play the course, we saw only 6 other golfers on the course. There are 2 parking lots there. One was less than half full when we finished and the other was completely empty.
I played Los Lagos last Saturday. Other than our foursome, there weren’t 20 others on the course before 11:00 a.m.
Guess times aren’t so tough after all if your playing golf twice a week, especially on a Wednesday when most are at work. But I guess maybe you private sector folks are on a furlough in the middle of the week…. hmmmm ??
How’s your game coming Tiger??
Another survey?? Get real Pier. Does San Jose have a Budget Director? I suggest a crash course in City Finance 101 for Dummies. As long as city depts keep spending more than it generates in revenue, we taxpaying suckers are never going to get a balanced budget and the services we expect and deserve. And please stop rewarding inefficiency by subsidizing city depts that can’t pull their own weight. Animal Control is perfect example of a joke. AC honcho Cicirelli needs to either get off his lazy butt and start cracking down on irresponsible animal owners who fail to license their pets or get fired. Audit says only 12% of dogs are licensed and receives an annual subsidy of $4.3 million from the city’s general operating fund. Who signing the check? I say cut off the kiddy allowance or off with the head.
Mayor Reed laid out the budget issue and solutions in the talk he gave last week at the Rotary Club. It was the most straight forward description of the problem along with the most straight forward set of steps to get the budget under control I’ve heard. The speech was also broadcast on KLIV. I believe the solutions he proposes are strongly supported by the tax paying public, and I congratulate him for his leadership.
I heard the speech. What a pack of lies and grandstanding, the mayor is not telling the truth. He is only telling the public what he wants them to know and leading you all like a heard of sheep to slaughter. Baaaaaaaaaaaa. If you follow, don’t bother calling anyone at the city for help with your petty little nieghborhood issues.
Pierluigi,
More Government by opinion poll? Is that your plan?
We expect our elected representatives to make the tough decisions. That’s what you signed up for and that’s why we pay you the big bucks. Enough of this survey crap already.
Survey says:
Which is exactly why city council members should just be paid a stipend with no benefits, as with other local cities.
Thank you Pierluigi, for asking for people’s opinions via your survey. I really appreciate the surveys you send out, and how you communicate the results.
There were so many years when decisions and actions were done in secret (ex: opening up the newspaper and seeing that the Grand Prix was comin’ to town…right. And what was the subsidy for that? And who asked us?). Many residents have clamored for “sunshine” and it’s great to see steps such as this survey taken because it lays out decisions our Council has to consider. (Now, if we could only view the labor discussions which are currently held behind closed doors.)
Last, it is a refreshing change to see many of our Council care enough to ask us, listen to us, and try to do the right thing. Thank you again,
Tina
Part of the problem are the folks keeping chairs warm every Tuesday while positioning themselves for the next compensated public position. But let’s be constructive, specific and clear, we can fix a lot of this by amending the city charter. Specifically:
ARTICLE XV
RETIREMENT
SECTION 1504. Minimum Benefits for Certain Members of Police and Fire Departments.
Amend subsection from: (c) CONTRIBUTIONS. Contributions required to be made by officers and employees of the City, other than those hereinafter excluded, to any retirement fund, system or plan for or because of current service or current service benefits of or for such officers or employees, in relation to and as compared with contributions made by the City for such purpose, shall not exceed the ratio of three (3) for such officers and employees to eight (8) for the City.
to say: (c) CONTRIBUTIONS. Contributions required to be made by officers and employees of the City, other than those hereinafter excluded, to any retirement fund, system or plan for or because of current service or current service benefits of or for such officers or employees, in relation to and as compared with contributions made by the City for such purpose, shall not exceed the ratio of one (1) for such officers and employees to one (1) for the City.
…and do the same change in….
SECTION 1505. Minimum Benefits for Officers and Employees Other Than Members of the Police or Fire Departments.
This 50-50 split between employer-employee were more accurately reflect market realities and make the beneficiary (city employees) more equitably bear the true costs of the city retirement.
Please put this on the ballot for November 2010 and let the citizens fix the problem.
Not saying if you are right or wrong, Blair, but just posing the question. You have many police departments in this area and around the state that pay 100% of the employee’s contribution into PERS. These departments are still hiring with some exceptions. San Jose Police officers currently pay about 18% of their gross salary into their own retirement system and you want to make their contributions drastically higher. If your plan is put in place, what would possibly attract an officer to come here from another department, and conversely wouldn’t many junior officers look to leave San Jose for less stressful departments that pay 100% of the retirement contributions? What would possible attract a new officer to come to San Jose, when they could go elsewhere and be better compensated? We would not be attracting the best and the brightest, but those that could not get hired elsewhere or were let go by other departments.
Not to be cold, but I’d consider these acceptable losses if people leave solely for monetary gain. I think its a better city and better police department, so I think people who care about more than a paycheck would still be drawn here.
If it was significant, we could address the matter with more local recruiting whereby we encourage San Jose children to do well in school and win college scholarships that would come with public service commitments. If proven fit, those could translate into police positions filled by people from the community. I personally think it was a mistake removing the requirement that city workers must live in the city, but see both sides.
Frank,
I believe I recently read where, for every advertised position in SJ safety departments, about 1000 applicants jump at the opportunity. Something is quite out of balance in the supply/demand equation. It is, of course, caused by the stratospherically lucrative package of salary and benefits offered.
I don’t think we need to worry too much about our folks going off to Tulare or Lancaster, or some other paradise in the Central Valley, to snag a fire or police opportunity.
I believe I recently read where only 200 applicants showed up for the last test for the police department. Also, 1500 applicants showed up for the fire department test.
The San Jose Chief of Police recently told a meeting of the Almaden Community Association that the Police Department gets 250 applicants for each slot in the Police Acadamy.
I’m fairly certain that this a higher ratio of selctivity than Harvard Law School, or Stanford Medical School, or West Point, or just about any highly selective professional institution.
The minimum qualification for San Jose Police Department is two years of college credits. Many San Jose Police officers have college degrees, and even advanced degrees.
Many other police departments require only a high school diploma.
There is no question, San Jose Police are LAVISHLY compensated, and have LAVISH benefits by prevailing market standards. The overwhelming crowd of applicants proves that.
It’s nice to have Police Officers with English degrees, or Law Degrees, or Philosophy degrees, but it is UNNECESSARY and an expensive luxury.
Clearly, San Jose can reduce the pay and benefits for the Police Department and still provide adequate public safety. You just may not be able to rely on the Police to help your kid with his term paper.
It may be true that the San Jose Police gets approximately 250 applicants for each slot in the police academy. How many of those are dismissed immediately for poor credit, prior criminal behavior, or not meeting the minimum requirements for the application?
You may be right that there is a very high selectivity for this application. Why you may ask. Well truth be told is that the law enforcement profession takes certain individuals. Just because you have an MBA with honors from Stanford does not mean you could even be an effective officer. The demeanor and personality necessary to be a good officer is unique.
Not only must you be educated to effectively document crimes, but also you must have a personality that allows the officers to obtain the information from people. If you do not have good peoples skills then that officer is useless.
In response to the statement that the San Jose Police are “Lavishly” compensated in comparison to whom? Are you comparing other departments or the private sector? You cannot compare the two. You don’t see officers obtaining stock options at a very low price, which they can later invest into retirement, nor are the officers getting a bonus for the arrest of the local rapist. Officers also do not get social security. Lastly the local worker at Ebay does not risk their LIFE for their job.
Some of the things that the public may also not know is that the City of San Jose have one of the lowest officers per thousand ratio in the nation. In addition, the City of San Jose’s budget for public safety is also one of the lowest in the nation. Look these statistics up and you will see that the City of San Jose is putting monies in other projects yet blaming the police and fire for their budget shortfalls. The citizens will be the ones who suffer. If the stance of the city continues then “Joe Citizen” will be waiting for a long while after you dial 911. This is not the fault of the police or fire department. This is the fault of the elected officials that cut these departments.
Once these cuts are made it will take years to make up the difference. The police department has a very difficult time find qualified applicants. Unless the citizens of San Jose want to cut these standards with the result of having less that professional/qualified officers answer 911 calls then so be it.
You are either a liar, or are getting bad information. I defy you to find where the police chief said they get 250 applicants for each position. That would mean for the last academy of 50 that were hired, they got 12,500 applicants. I called the background unit, and they got a little over 500 to apply, and the hiring rate is about 10% that make it through the entire background process. Please at least don’t make up total fabrications as you chose to do. I am looking forward to you providing proof.
It’s easy to take a 10% cut when you make 250k or more…. Especially when you have the “executive privilege” of selling back your vacation or sick time to make up the difference…..
“…the city of San Jose has had a deficit for the last decade…”
Pierluigi,
With all the cuts in the last decade, can we say the real deficit is much, much higher than $118 million? For example, all the deferred road maintenance and other infrastructure items that have not been funded for years? We know eventually San Jose residents will have to pay for these items once they completely fall apart. The city council has been borrowing for years against these future tax hikes. Is there any record of the unfunded items to give residents a more accurate picture of the dismal financial state of our city?
Hello Steve0,
The deferred maintenance backlog is $446 million which is mostly for streets. If we add in the Water Pollution Control Plant it is $821 million.
Wow, this must also be caused by all those over paid city employees. Yes? No? Maybe the real problem is something else. I wonder what it could be??? Think for yourselves people!!!!
It appears that as the City of San Jose lays off it’s lowest paid help, janitors for example. They will contract with companies that only need to say their workers are citizens and the city won’t pursue any more documentation of workers in that company.
So as the city lays of it’s janitors and gardeners, they will replace them with people who are undocumented workers at the cost of laying off US citizens.
these forums are sad for several reasons. i don’t know why there is so much hatred for your public employees. as much as there is a budget problem, I don’t like how employees are being blamed for the problem. Why would you blame someone who has really no say as to how the City spends its money? Let’s not forget that the elected officials agreed to the salaries that people make. Let’s be fair, everyone wants good benefits. Why was it given in the first place if it wasn’t a smart decision? I think you are focusing your attention to the wrong people. The elected officials created the problem by not fixing this problem many years ago (they always want to keep their pet projects) and are now trying to ride in on a white horse to save the day. Talk about job security.
You are correct. Blaming the employees is an easy target and has created a hostile work environment. The chief cheerleader pushing this morale killing attack is Pete Constant. His FB page looks like something right out of Tea Party HQ. He is blaming upcoming service cuts on city employees. What a guy.
There seems to be no decency left at City Hall as everyone scrambles to blame somebody else for this mess. Of course, two of the chief architects of the budget meltdown—Borgsdorf and Gonzales—are off in other jobs happily collecting their pensions from the City. Nice going, guys.
Until members of the Council (and many folks on SJI) stop pitting employees against citizens we will have continue to have an ugly situation at City Hall.
> i don’t know why there is so much hatred for your public employees. as much as there is a budget problem, I don’t like how employees are being blamed for the problem. Why would you blame someone who has really no say as to how the City spends its money?
What? WHAT! W-H-A-A-A-T-?-?-?
No say in how the City spends money??!!!
Time for a little civics refresher.
Step 1: Take your public school civics textbook, rip out all the pages and feed them to your goat. Take your civics textbook covers and tape the edges together. Tape a free AOL CD to the cover, and take it out to the shooting range for target practice. I suggest a .223 caliber firearm because the ammo is cheap and readily available.
Step 2: Memorize the following precedural stages for exercising political power in San Jose.
A. Public employees form union.
B. Unions collect dues and “contributions” from employees.
C. Unions give collected employee contributions to politicians’ election campaigns.
D. Politician gets elected to City Council.
E. City Council directs City Manager to negotiate sweetheart contract with unions.
F. Union employees get pay increases.
G. Unions raise dues and employee contributions.
H. Unions give additional contributions to more politicians.
I. More union-funded politicians get elected to City Council.
J. City Council directs City Manager to negotiate sweeter sweatheart contract with unions.
I. Union employees get bigger pay increases and more union jobs.
J,K,L,M,N,O,P – Z is left as an exercise for the student.
reply to Civics Lesson:
Thanks for showing us how smart you think you are and how dumb you think we all are. I assume you have a high school diploma or some formal education based on your attempt to tell us how budgeting works. Do you think janitors decide how the budget is spent? Give me a break. Assuming you have a job and aren’t like most on these boards who are out of work and blaming everyone else for their predicament, don’t you ask for raises? Don’t you occasionally get them? So when you get a raise, do you want to give it back? Would you want to give it back to pay for someone else’s raise or car allowance? A raise is agreed to, plain and simple. Of course their bargaining and pleading for it, but that happens everywhere. Here’s the real problem in San Jose. Apparently, after 10 years of trying not to really solve the budget, there is a huge 100 million dollar problem. I’m not saying that employee pay and benefits aren’t part of the equation, but it takes two to tango for the 10 years our great City has had deficits. For some reason, everyone thinks the unions are all powerful. Didn’t you see how some were just forced to take 10% cuts even though those cuts won’t put any dent in the 100 million dollar deficit. Unfortunately, in your feeble attempt to be smarter than everyone with your sarcastic fit, you missed the real point. The people in charge aren’t taking responsibility for what has happened. They are blaming everyone else. Public Safety is almost 65% of the budget. Old City Hall is left collecting dust while libraries and community centers are on the chopping block. Please save your rhetoric for a tea party rally.
Labor (personnel salaries and benefits) is traditionally the biggest (90%+) part of local governments budget. That’s why those salaries and benefits become such an issue and sometimes it gets mean spirited.
Los Angeles has 80% of there budget tied up in just public safety, which means that all the other services for that huge city must fight over the last 20%. That’s bad, and the city is in trouble.
San Jose has a similar trajectory, where collective bargaining has created have’s that must get paid, given raises, and receive huge pension subsidies. Because of labor contracts, these increases are locked in, and already high wages keeping growing faster than inflation. Ditto with benefits, where the pension costs alone are growing at a huge rate.
Assigning blame is a great pass-time, but it doesn’t fix problems and get us a better future. Let’s just say that most of those casting votes are gone (term limits) but not far (having moved on to other offices like fixing the state budget, etc.)
The political system seems to have failed. Like a failed state internationally, a failed local government is adrift with vague notions of core services and no real stomach for balancing a budget.
When the private sector is doing well, public employees want to do wage comparisons and get raises. When it is slow, they still want those raises as well as full benefits and retirement. Its human nature to take all you can get, but the reality is that we can no longer afford the luxury of having both highly paid and highly benefited employees. The trade off used the be that you didn’t make as much as the private sector but had job security and a great retirement as well as a satisfying job helping people in the community. Now the equation has shifted where you get better pay than the private sector, great benefits, and with seniority…job security.
The danger is that the pensions will be reformed into a two-tier plan where new employees who being new will be given the most work, will make a fraction of what older employees (supervisors, etc) will retire with and continue to draw from the pension fund for decades. That’s wrong.
The greatest beneficiary of the pension system is the individual paying into and then drawing out from the fund. Shouldn’t they pay at least 50-50 with the city for this? Fix this problem, and you’re on the way to getting things back under control.
> I assume you have a high school diploma or some formal education based on your attempt to tell us how budgeting works.
In fact, I have a magnificent high school education. I get my diploma out of the drawer once or twice a week and admire it.
> Unfortunately, in your feeble attempt to be smarter than everyone with your sarcastic fit, you missed the real point. The people in charge aren’t taking responsibility for what has happened. They are blaming everyone else.
NO! NO! NO! YOU missed the real point.
The real point is: “The people in charge aren’t taking responsibility for what has happened. They are blaming everyone else.”
You failed to grasp that my feeble attempt to be smarter than everyone actually validated what you recognized as “the real point”.
Subtlety is wasted on you, isn’t it.
Those “people in charge who aren’t taking responsibility” went along with the imposition of a budget plan that was CLEARLY UNSUSTAINABLE. They knew it was unsustainable, the unions knew it was unsustanable.
The public DIDN’T know it was unsustainable because the public is naive and trusting and doesn’t know how to unravel all the fibs and lies hidden in the details.
Today’s Mercury shreiks: “Governor makes draconian cuts to social programs.”
This is the lie. A truthful headline would be:
“Sham of economically unsustainable social progam funding schemes final blows up and splatters slime over the entire political establishment.”
“Twenty years of crooked bookkeeping exposed.”
“Program advocates knew from the beginning that the funding plan was a steaming pile of horse manure, but conspired to lie about it anyway.”