7 ms·

The Beholden State: How public sector unions broke California

• vondur 16y ago
  We also have the problems with having a huge illegal immigrant population and the associated costs with it. (education, health care, public assistance) When you add it all up, California is in pretty bad shape.
  • rdl 16y ago
    Why does illegal immigration seem to be a bigger problem in California than in Texas? Maybe my perception of the relative problems is wrong, but certainly Californians complain a lot more about illegal immigrants (specifically, Mexicans and other Hispanics; not generally Asians) than Texans. Is it just that Texas is less doomed overall? Or that the economy and government of Texas are more able to benefit from immigrants? Or something else?
    • jacobolus 16y ago
      It’s because stirring up racist nativist voters with anti-immigrant rhetoric is (seen as) a more useful political strategy in CA than TX. Unfortunately it’s both sides of the aisle: one of Senator Feinstein’s more shameful episodes was her support of stupid immigration policy (with back-up from the Clinton white house) in the 1990s, which she thought would help her politically.
  • jacobolus 16y ago
    Undocumented workers pay more in taxes (automatically withheld from their paychecks just like everyone else’s) than they take out in services.
    • rdl 16y ago
      I think that is not accurate. While undocumented workers pay more into FICA-funded programs than they take out in services, those are generally federal. Illegals probably consume higher per-capita services than legal immigrants or citizens, if for no other reason than being lower income. Lower income people consume roughly comparable amounts of some services, and consume higher per capita police, locally-funded health clinic, etc. resources. As well, they're unlikely to pay as much per capita property tax (via rentals). If they have children, their education would cost more (due to ESL programs), although I'm not sure what the rate of having children is among this class.
      • sprout 16y ago
        I was in a Bilingual kindergarten class in Texas, which has been a lifelong boon, as a native English speaker. Children pick up language pretty easily. If we're putting the adults through ESL courses, that could be a serious drain. Even more for children born in the states - many won't ever properly learn Spanish, even when their parents mostly speak it in the home. On the rest of your points, undocumented workers primarily rely on charity, not on the government. They don't want to run the risk more often that they need to. They're not going to go to any free clinics that accept tax dollars, and they're not going to want to attract the attention of the police.
        • rdl 16y ago
          Second (and more) languages are definitely valuable for the US -- having immigrants living in the US with fluency in their heritage language as well as English makes it easier for US companies to do business in foreign countries, and domestic people learning foreign languages helps as well. I tried to find stats on the net costs of illegal immigrants resident in the US, and really couldn't find anything conclusive. The best information seems to be that they could impose slight net costs on some communities, but that it's a relatively minor amount relative to the size of budgets. I definitely wouldn't say California's problems are mainly due to illegal immigration. I'm just curious why it is so much more of a political issue in some states than others.
          • protomyth 16y ago
            knowing the language of the majority makes you normal; knowing your own language and the language of the majority give you an advantage; not knowing the language of the majority sets you up to be a lifelong victim and pawn of people who seek power in your name
    • vondur 16y ago
      Most undocumented workers are paid under the table, and hence pay no payroll taxes.
      • jacobolus 16y ago
        I don’t know the numbers off hand, but a very large percentage are paid as if they had papers: employers don’t want to get in trouble and if they pay people normally they can later play dumb “oh I didn’t know that wasn’t his social security number” etc.
        • protomyth 16y ago
          getting caught messing with I9 forms as an employer is not cheap
  • jberryman 16y ago
    your assertion that our illegal immigrant population plays a significant factor in CA's budget problems deserves a huge <citation needed>.
• gte910h 16y ago
  No, the stupid 2/3rds rule to pass a budget did that. Unions are just one of the many special interests that win from that silly constitutional issue. Supermajorities to do normal things are bad. If they had a normal budgetary process, then they'd have more normal repubs cut taxes/services vs dems add them sort of dynamic that the rest of the country does.
  • jacoblyles 16y ago
    Could you elaborate on that? I don't see a direct causal link between two-thirds vote requirements and higher union pension obligations, and your comment appears to be popular.
    • TomOfTTB 16y ago
      Though not the original commenter I can elaborate. The people of California are well intentioned. So they tried a very liberal approach to their public employees pensions. This quickly got out of control. But the fact that they need 2/3rds of the vote to get anything done combined with special interest money has made it impossible to repeal this well intentioned system that simply doesn't work. Because doing so would require a cut in the budget for said program. So we're being bankrupted. This is true of many of California's problems. Our State Government lacks the ability to even pass a budget on time so repealing the public sector mess that has been created is far beyond what they are able to accomplish
      • jacoblyles 16y ago
        My understanding is that the union contracts are harder to roll back than normal spending because they are legally binding contracts. Even if they got a 2/3rds majority in the Democrat controlled legislature to repeal union benefits, would they have the legal power to do so? And is the 2/3rds vote on everything, just budget related items, or taxes? I hear the complaint about how hard it is to raise taxes in California alot, but California has a high tax burden.
      • anamax 16y ago
• stretchwithme 16y ago
  California state spending doubled between 1996 and 2006. The problem is not that not enough money can be taken from the taxpayer. I think whoever and however things are decided, spending with debt ought to be as hard as spending with tax money. And this practice where you work tons of overtime in your last year and get paid extra for those hours for the rest of your life is simple thievery. Who in their right mind would agree to pay for such a thing?
  • _delirium 16y ago
    In nominal terms yes, but over that period, there was also inflation, population growth, and a rise in standards of living. If you look at state spending as a percentage of state GDP, it's pretty flat from 1996-2006, basically wobbling on either side of 20%, until the current recession when it jumps up to ~25%. 1995: 19.7% 2000: 18.2% 2005: 20.8% 2008: 22.3% 2010 (est): 24.8% Source: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1990_2010&view=1&expand=&units=b&fy=fy10&chart=F0-total&bar=1&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=CA&color=c&local=s http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=19...
    • anamax 16y ago
      State GDP is a strange way to measure things. For example, Google's growth doesn't cause a proportional growth in the demand for govt services. If anything, Google's grown decreases said demand through the economic activity multiplier. (Folks who benefit from that growth spend money, which employs people and so on.)
      • _delirium 16y ago
        I agree there are other ways, but it's a vague proxy for inflation+population+standards of living, and I don't currently have available a better proxy. If government spending is staying constant as a proportion of GDP, it just means that government services are growing exactly in line with everything else, with an unchanged private:public sector balance. You can't just use inflation, because if, say, median wages rise faster than inflation, then the cost to the government of the same amount of labor will typically rise faster than inflation as well. (This is one reason Alabama has low spending, because cost of living, land, and prevailing wages in Alabama are low.) What people expect out of government services also rises roughly with GDP: a spectrum from poor countries, where not having A/C in government offices is fine, as are overburdened slow trains and pot-hole-filled roads, to advanced countries, where people start wanting things like internet-enabled services, high-speed rail, and modern freeways.
• jacoblyles 16y ago
  The idea that California's only budget problem is that they can't raise property taxes easy enough sounds suspiciously like tribalistic thinking.
• jackfoxy 16y ago
  Anecdote: I know a couple, she a former high-level bureaucrat for the state of Ca., he a former mid-level Ca. bureaucrat. I say former because they both retired at 55. I don't claim to know much about the public employee's retirement system. I do know public employees do not pay into Social Security, and no one can retire on SS at age 55. I also know it's very likely this couple will live long enough so that they both enjoy more years in retirement than the people of Ca. paid them to do something productive.
  • adolph 16y ago
    Hopefully they will find a nice low-tax state to live in!
• whyenot 16y ago
  City Journal is a quarterly magazine, published by the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a free market think tank based out of New York City. This is not an impartial source when it comes to California's problems, not that they are wrong, unions are part of the problem, but there's also the 2/3 rule for raising taxes, corrupt and ineffective politicians who have constructed non-competitive districts for themselves, the initiative system and ultimately California voters who apparently don't give a rats ass about anything unless it is approving more services and lower taxes for themselves.
  • lionhearted 16y ago
    > VOTERS who apparently don't give a rats ass about anything unless it is approving more services and lower taxes for themselves. California has the highest state taxes in almost every tax category, from personal income, to corporate income, to minimum corporate tax ($800 corporate taxes payable if you broke even or lost money, ouch), highest vehicle registration costs, vehicle re-sale taxes, high sales tax, high hotel taxes, etc, etc. It doesn't matter how much money you bring in if you consistently spend more than it.
    • TomOfTTB 16y ago
      That, to me, is the real point here. You could not imagine a state or country with more going for it. Farming, the technological and entertainment hubs of the world along with a climate that produces idealic beaches, snow covered mountains and an ideal enviornment for theme parks (little rain combined with mild temp). California should be studied as what not to do because the fact that it has become so screwed up is almost beyond belief Edit: I forgot shipping. One whole side of the state is along the pacific and we're the closest landlocked state to Asia where all the cheap goods are made
      • stretchwithme 16y ago
        landlocked?
        • 16y ago