I don't blog very often because I feel constant complaining accomplishes the opposite of what you would think it does. However, I opened the Editorial Section of today's NY Times and found a positively fawning article about my nominal boss, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (Ahnold to most of us). Why is he may boss? I am employed by the State of California. I used to say that I was a 'Civil Servant' until I realized one day that most people don't have a clue as to what that means. All they seem to hear is 'Servant' I'm left with the impression that they believe us to be Indentured Servants or that we are some other type of servant or even slave.
It becomes more and more difficult to work for California. I've had so much stuff crammed down towards me that I'm actually having a health challenge with swallowing and have had to request medical tests.
First Ahnold thought it would be a good idea to ignore our employment contracts and force us to take an unpaid day off without pay (furloughs). Then seeing as that gave him and his fellow Republicans such a pleasure he decided to have us take two more days off! Am I bitter? You bet. A completely unnecessary 14% pay cut was actually publicly justified so he would not have to rescind recent tax cuts made to his rich friends. In other words, we were just a damn ATM for him so he would have to do any inconvenient, actual, financial, heavy lifting or provide any leadership. Now Ahnold and the unions are involved in over 20 law suits which have just now ended up in the California Supreme Court. Most annoyingly, he went out and hired private lawyers because he won't trusts State Civil employees to do their jobs. Our contracts also include binding arbitration clauses as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism. We don't always like to use arbitration as they tend to split the difference but in this case, Ahnold has refused to respond to arbitration requests which tends to defeat the purpose of arbitration. This man has no real use for the rule of law.
The latest nonsense that's being crammed down on us is that we need to give up at least part of our pensions, kick in more money and treat new employees to a lower tier of pension benefits. We're being told that the $19 billion dollar budget surplus has solely do with a nominal $200 million pension short fall. Run the numbers, and you'll see that they are obsessing over around 1% of the budget shortfall. What this really is about has to do with several factors:
- Republicans hate, loath and despise government employees and what specially drives them up the wall is that most government employees get a defined benefit pension plan.
- Whenever they see a large pool of money such as government pension funds they can only think of how they can somehow get a hold of these funds for their own nefarious purposes. After all, that's what they did to most every defined benefit pension plan in the private sector.
- Because in the past many of them got totally screwed in their IRA and similar, they won't rest until everyone suffers a similar fate. The broker faction of republicans have surely worked up spread sheets of the obscene amount of money they could make converting defined benefits to defined contributions, thought their brokerages.
- The other complaints are that government employees retire too early, and get paid too much. These complaints seem to be what they've heard from some right wing, loud mouth in a bar or some right wing blog or TV show. There are some government employees that can retire early. Most notably are fire fighters and law enforcement staffers. These people work hard and have very hazardous duties. It's a miracle that any of these people live to collect any pension. It speaks volumes about the poor characters of those that begrudge these folks their benefits. Were it up to me, those people who begrudge paying fire fighter pensions should have to be put on a central registry so their homes or properties could be ignore in the inevitable next disaster.
- Finally, this is, like the scene in the Wizard of OZ, where the hapless Wizard says, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." This pensions demonizing is nothing more than a conservative Republican smoke screen to distract people from the the very real fact that, unpleasant as it may seem to a privileged few, taxes will need to be increased in California. Unwinding some of the major tax breaks to the wealthy and instituting a severance tax on oil would go a long way towards economic justice in California.
Even if you can't comprehend the numbers, here's something you can chew on. Activist have calculated that Ahnold could fire every state employee and not balance the State budget.
The NT Times article is particularly annoying in that it's clear that the author has been taken in by Ahnold. Ahnold is very charismatic but seems mostly concerned with 'optics'. From his start as a muscle builder and his subsequent career as a movie star and then Governor of California, appearance have been much more important to him than actual facts. He has continued to try and balance the budget of the State of California on the backs of Government employees by demonizing us as some sort of parasitical growth on society. He is a registered Republican and is not, repeat NOT, non-partisan or independent. He is an opportunist. His term lasts through the end of this year and he cannot serve as Governor again due to term limitations (Yay!). Thoughtful people have suggested that he is concerned about his legacy as a Governor or that he is concerned that he is starting to appear powerless. He may be positioning himself to run for Senator in 2012. Whatever comes up, he should be watching closely for his tendency to act only for his own benefit.