Greetings from a cynical centrist!
Here we are two months away from an election of such enormous ramifications the results of which will be felt for decades. Yet, we’ve had dozens of letters over a doggie fundraiser contest result. Amazing! But then editor J.P. saved us from ourselves.
The election you ask? I did feel compelled to support Governor Brown’s Proposition 30 [raise revenue or cut education funding] since we were about to have the usual march of the poor deprived school children paraded before our eyes if we didn’t acquiesce to Sacramento’s socialistic demands.
Then one guy named Warren Buffet chimed in. He says our public pension system is based on wildly optimistic investment returns, or will run short by hundreds of billions — with a “B” — of dollars.
Apparently, much of the Proposition 30 tax increase is actually going to fund pensions indirectly. Shame on the governor for not reducing our bloated pension liabilities first.
Note to all of you public employees: How long do you think people in the private sector are going to sit still for the huge wage disparity between public and private sector? The median income here is about $20,000 per capita ($10/hour) or $35,000 per household. (Half make less. Half make more, way more.)
I know public administrators in the San Jacinto Valley that maintain their token two-bedroom local hovel for some weeknights only to really live in Coronado or Pacific Palisades on the weekend.
Yet, public employees seem to think it’s just fine to make double, triple or more what their private sector neighbors make at public expense. People like school teachers, and most of the 20,000 or so Riverside County employees.
And fat cat administrators use their underlings salaries to justify their even fatter six-figure salaries. Even the self-employed seven geniuses that populate the Hemet Unified school board get at least their health care paid for at taxpayer expense.
And then Hemet Teachers Association union leaders run for school board. The whole system is inherently self-serving and thus corrupt.
The best question might be why do teachers in the private sector that make half the money often produce better student test scores? Likely something to do with parents’ expectations of their children and not expecting teachers to be parents for them.
Adding insult to injury, public retiree pensions are paid often at 90 percent of their just-spiked public salary pay for decades of retirement. And to make matters worse, too many pensioners retire on a disability (both real and imagined) to avoid paying income taxes on their pensions. Have we become a nation of weasels who want zero taxes for you but not anyone else?
My solution? For starters, public pay should resemble the local community, and not the pay necessary to live on the coast.
And since the private sector must live with a 401(k) retirement plan (if they are lucky), then so can you.
Why has the biggest employer in Riverside County been the county for generations? This is still called socialism most places. Maybe we can rename our county “Bell County” after that Los Angeles County city rife with self-serving, overpaid public servants that were arrested.
Until Social-mento gets pensions right, vote “No” on Proposition 30.
Mike Reno
Pine Cove
jerry brown is bluffing
he can't cut education, the teacher's union won't let him !