Chicago Boyz – California’s Tipping Point:
California has ~2.3 million unionized government workers and ~18.6 million civilians. With so many people organized with a laser-like focus on increasing taxes and spending, the private working citizens of California find it nearly impossible to prevent government workers from voting their own paychecks.
In effect, government workers have hijacked democracy. Instead of state employees working for the people, the people now work for the state employees. As far as the state government is concerned, people in the private sector work merely so that they can be taxed for the benefit of the tax consumers. They’ve entered a condition not unlike like that of pre-industrial serfs.
Of course no one is being whipped, but in effect an ordinary citizen of California cannot get their desires for reduced state spending implemented due to the disproportionate power of the State’s employees and allied interest. It appears now that the government unions will not accept any solution to California’s budget crisis except increased taxes in a declining economy. Ordinary citizens have no choice but to either emigrate or just lie there and take it.
By long custom and law, the U.S. military has remained ruthlessly apolitical. Serving members do not endorse candidates, organize politically in any fashion or make independent public statements about campaign issues. That standard evolved due to the obvious danger of having a military with a positive feedback loop into the political system that controls its budget. The same danger exists for all other state employees, albeit in a slower and less dramatic fashion.
No one should be able to vote their own paycheck. Government-employee unions should be legally restricted from engaging in any kind of political activity. If not, it is only a matter of time before civil servants become civil masters.
From a previous post of mine on Vallejo, California’s bankruptcy: “The insanity here is that public service unions are allowed to donate to candidates. The system allows taxpayer money skimmed from public employee salaries to fund political campaigns to elect more politicians to give more money to government employees … and the system just reinforces itself.”
And now the U.S. has more people working in government than in manufacturing.
Hat tip to Instapundit.
Previously
- CA pension loses 25% of assets since July 1 due to real estate investments
- California will lead states seeking bailout
- How did Vallejo, California go bankrupt?
- Goldman Sachs warns on NJ, CA, WI, FL, OH, MI bonds
- Britain’s public pension problems
- Vallejo, California declares bankruptcy
- How irrational are California public pensions?
- State pension funds heading for insolvency
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I love the 4th paragraph you quoted. What burning irony to tout the political independence of soldiers on the heels of poster boys for military contractors taking us on a trillion-dollar ride. It’s charming how conservatives can have reality staring them right in the face and still see nothing but their prejudices.
Government budgets spiral ever higher, but do conservatives follow the money? Of course not, they follow the unions. So instead of seeing who government spending enriches–developers, road builders, lawyers, contractors–they see who it merely employs. Government payroll eclipses manufacturing payroll under Bush, but is his creation of the largest bureaucracy in history (DHS) fingered? No, it’s California’s fault.
If the blind spots in the conservative perspective get any bigger, you’re going to need canes.
That’s funny, I didn’t realize the state of California had its own military. It’s California that’s about to go bankrupt and it ain’t because they’ve been buying F-22 Raptors.
Granted there’s plenty of sleaze and corruption in Federal military spending, but that isn’t what’s causing problems for cities and states that are facing bankruptcy.
Does California’s government payroll exceed its manufacturing payroll?
The government payroll numbers seem to be a combination of federal, state, and local, so the question doesn’t make sense.
I just saw elsewhere that’s TN’s budget doubled over the last 20 years even adjusted for inflation. The number of people on the payroll only went up about 20%, but somehow the budget doubled.
It’s your thesis that makes no sense. You are trying to argue that government payroll and the influence of unions is what is driving California to bankruptcy. Your evidence is a mishmash of relevant and irrelevant data and mostly just a blinkered look at a fragment of the problem. Your Tenn. data proves that you are barking up the wrong tree, but reality must bow to party prejudices and ideological rigidity.
Therefore it’s the Democrats taking gobs of cash from public servants’ unions that is ruining everything!
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