EditorWith not enough producers for the amount of people looting the state’s treasury, California faces a dim future.
Although California’s unions only represent 15.9 percent of wage and salary workers in the state, their control of the state’s capitol and of its governor is unparalleled in the country—even to the point of setting the state up for an eventual bankruptcy.
In large measure, the state’s impending financial problems are due to the control the state’s unions have on California politics.
When California’s governor Jerry Brown labeled taxpayers who complained about a new gas tax as “freeloaders,” his statement was indicative of the despotic attitude California has for those who produce the goods and services that keep a free market free.
Between the generous welfare programs doled out and the state’s unfunded pension liabilities—among the worst in the nation—the state has more people taking from the government than it has jobs in the private sector.
California-based writer Katy Grimes summarizes the economic problems here:
California has a significant economy, with more than 19 million private-sector jobs in the state. However, the number of welfare recipients “enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program in California alone exceeds the total populations of 44 of the other states of the union, according to data published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Census Bureau,” Terence Jeffrey with CNS news reported.
California has 13,496 state and municipal employees drawing salaries of $200,000 and up, according to Open The Books. California has more than 13 million welfare recipients, a large government employee class of more than 2 million, and more than 1.4 million former government employees now collecting overly generous government pensions.
When you add up the numbers, there are far more Californians drawing from the government than people working outside the government and paying taxes. According to William Baldwin in Forbes, six states are at risk of going into a downward spiral in the next recession because of this unsustainable ratio of private sector workers to state government workers, and those on welfare or receiving welfare benefits. And in California, this does not take into consideration the millions of illegal aliens, some of whom are also on the dole. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, “nearly one in ten California workers is an undocumented immigrant.”
The disdain California has for taxpayers is apparent to many, as evidenced by those who are leaving for more affordable states.
There is an old axiom that states: “An honest man is one who knows that he can’t consume more than he has produced.” It appears that California has crossed that threshold between honest and dishonest men, and a reckoning may be coming soon.
Related:
Once the CA government collapses and the riots begin, perhaps the private sector can demand the state agencies all be outsourced and run properly?
The state of California has so many scams over charging tax payers. Here are a few of my favorites. Fireman, nurses, border patrol and prison guards who negotiate contracts with overtime pay equal to or in excess of their base pay. Nurses working 12 hour shifts for the sole purpose of getting overtime while they inefficiently perform their additional 4 hours work while exhausted. Fireman who polish trucks for most of their careers and self promote themselves constantly with jobs that do not rank in the top 28th percentile of dangerous. Try combat soldier, fisherman, logging, heavy equipment if you want to say that you have a dangerous job. I guess they don’t need self promotion and pats on the back.