Posts Tagged ‘pension crisis’
Tuesday, October 8th, 2013
With budget issues occupying the nation, now’s time yet again to compare Texas’ successful Red State model with California’s failing Blue State model:
Like Detroit’s retirement fund (or Greek public servants), some retired Sacramento government employees were evidently used to receiving thirteen monthly checks a year. Now a federal judge has said enough.
People Stockton’s bankruptcy plan screws: creditors and taxpayers. And who won’t be required to take a haircut? CalPERS retirees.
Vallejo took much the same tack during their bankruptcy (higher taxes and no pension reform). Well, guess what? They’re broke again.
CalPERS isn’t the only underfunded California retirement system. There’s also CalSTRS, the teacher’s retirement system. “CalSTRS’ funding ratio falling to 67% in 2012 from 98% in 2001, well below the 80% considered fiscally sound.”
That might have something to do with the fact that 6,609 retirees receive more than $100,000 from CalSTARS annually.
CalPERS? 12,1999 receive more than $100,000 annually. Topped by Bruce Malkenhorst, of the corrupt city of Vernon, who pulled in more than a half-million annually, until the pension review board cut it back to a “mere” $115,000.
Big problems still loom for CalPERS.
“Regardless of what happens in bankruptcy court, California’s local governments, especially cities, are facing years, or even decades, of fiscal distress from rapidly rising pension costs.”
Marian County’s pension debt clocks in at a hefty $2.3 billion.
The California State Auditor’s own report can be read here:
We believe the State continues to face eight other significant high-risk issues: the state budget, funding for the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, funding retiree health benefits for state employees, funding for deteriorating infrastructure, ensuring a stable supply of electricity, workforce and succession planning, strengthening emergency preparedness, and providing effective oversight of the State’s information technology.
California’s new feudalism. “Like medieval serfs, increasing numbers of Californians are downwardly mobile, and doing worse than their parents.”
The 10 year anniversary of the Gray Davis recall. “We learned that the problem wasn’t just Davis and that simply changing who is governor wasn’t enough to make California government work. Schwarzenegger wasn’t a bad governor, but he failed to solve the state’s basic budget problems.”
With a wave of people signing up for ObamaCare, what is California to do? Why, obviously, cut Medicaid payouts!
Attention illegal aliens: Go to California if you want a driver’s license.
Al Jazeera headline: Tea party makes California inroads. Actual story: “For the first time, the tea party’s California caucus has a table at the state’s Republican fall convention.” That’s less an “inroad” than an “in-driveway”…
Rick Perry to California: “We don’t judge success on the number of people we have on public assistance.”
“Texas’ unemployment rate has now been lower than the national average, and California’s, for 80 consecutive months.”
Texas now has the best credit rating in the world.
“The Rainy Day Funds of Texas and Alaska alone are now larger than the stabilization funds of all other states combined.”
USAA is expanding in Plano.
500 Republicans moving to Texas every day?
In non-political, Halloween-related California news, it’s tarantula mating season in California. Just in case you needed another reason to leave California…
Tags:Arnold Schwarzenegger, Budget, California, CalPERs, CalSTARS, Gray Davis, ObamaCare, pension crisis, Rick Perry, Texas, unions, welfare, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, ObamaCare, Texas, unions, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
Thursday, February 21st, 2013
Another Texas vs. California update! And I don’t even have a line item on how the Houston Rockets picked the Sacramento Kings’ pockets’ in yesterday’s trade.
All of TPPF’s Texas vs. California updates in one handy place.
California is raising taxes and decreasing services.
Mainly because pension funding is crowding out everything else.
Good news for California: They got $5 billion more in revenues than they expected in January. The bad news? It was only “an accounting anomaly.”
California voters approved a few modest pension reforms last fall. Naturally, unions are sponsoring legislation to have them overturned.
Logic: “No amount of legal argument can sidestep the grim numbers facing San Bernardino. The City Council and employee unions alike should recognize a basic fiscal fact: The city will never climb out of bankruptcy without reining in personnel costs.” Unions: You and your oppressive math and logic can die in a fire.
Who says California’s high taxes and excessive regulation are driving businesses away? According to The Sacramento Business Journal, 54% of Californians.
One reason businesses flock to Texas from California is lawsuit reform. Texas has it, California doesn’t. “For decades, its leaders have consistently pursued policies that promote excessive litigation, making it among the most litigious states. These policies create obstacles for the new and small businesses that drive California’s economy and have allowed abusive lawsuits to delay or halt projects.”
The Economist sniffs that Texas’ spending restraint meant the state spent less than the could have. That’s not a bug, that’s a feature.
Liberal compares Rick Perry to Stalin because Texas won’t spend as much as liberals think they should. I’m sure we all can agree that was the very worst thing about old Joe Stalin: Fiscal restraint.
Tags:California, pension crisis, Regulation, Rick Perry, San Bernardino, Texas, unions
Posted in Budget, Democrats, Regulation, Texas, unions | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, February 6th, 2013
CalPERS: the pension fund that ate California. A tale filled with lies, waste, and outright corruption that’s even worse than I thought (and I thought it plenty bad).
Via the indispensable Will Franklin comes this eye-opening comparison of welfare in California vs. Texas. “As you can see, California is practically in a quadrant unto itself, indicating a lot of people receiving a lot each in welfare benefits. Meanwhile, Texas is situated precisely in the opposite corner of the graphic, indicating that a low percentage of Texas’ residents are receiving welfare, and among those who are receiving welfare, they’re receiving smaller benefits than those living essentially anywhere else in the country.” Read the whole thing. And get a gander at the chart.
Jerry Brown gets voters to approve a measure that cuts California public employee union pensions a tiny, weensie bit. The result? “California Public Employees’ Retirement System is essentially going to defy the order that pensions will be calculated based on base pay by declaring enhancements and bonuses are part of base pay.” And some unions are suing to opt out. And Brown isn’t even willing to defend the reforms in court.
“The highest-paid 10 percent of Southern California Edison employees earned at least $418.8 million in combined total compensation during 2011, and charged at least $11.8 million to their expense accounts, according to a report the public utility filed with the state. SCE’s most recent annual report showed 19 executives and other SCE employees received more than $1 million in total compensation during 2011, and at least 130 others received $300,000 or more in total compensation.”
Judge in Stockton bankruptcy: Sure, it’s OK to screw bondholders. Go right ahead.
Professional athletes are leaving high tax states like California for low-tax states like Texas and Florida.
At least Texans know how much they owe.
Here’s the official Texas state document on local debt. Texas cities, alas, haven’t been nearly as frugal as the state legislature has been.
Speaking of not being as frugal as they could be, here’s the place to search Texas pension funds. I might delve more into these two links when I have time.
Texas Public Policy Foundation on keeping Texas competitive.
And if you haven’t kept up with Dwight’s updates on the Bell corruption trial, you really should.
Tags:Budget, California, fraud, pension crisis, Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation, unions, waste, Welfare State, WILLisms
Posted in Budget, Democrats, Economics, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
Thursday, January 24th, 2013
Meant to put some of these up with Tuesday’s roundup and just misplaced them:
Orange County pension members find out that it’s not about politics, it’s about math.
Jerry Brown’s ostensibly balanced budget does nothing to pay down huge pension liabilities.
In the quest to shake ever-more-money out of the pockets of taxpayers, California just ignores that pesky “no ex post factor laws” section of the Constitution, eliminating a tax credit retroactively back to 2008.
More on that Moody’s recalculation of liabilities:
Six California counties with their own pensions (instead of paying into the Golden State’s Public Employees’ Retirement System) would actually have to pay down $10 billion in pension deficits, versus the $4 billion they currently report bad on inflated rates of return. As a result, these counties would be expected by bondholders to pay out $1.4 billion a year just to pay down their pension deficits, more than double the $640 million they currently pay. For Contra Costa County near San Francisco, the percentage of property tax dollars devoted to pension deficit pay down would increase from 33 percent to 54 percent, crowding out funding for basic municipal activities. In short, these governments would be considered technically insolvent under Moody’s model.
That recalculation and other reforms should make California’s pension debt crises even more apparent.
CalPERS has a lot of ‘splain’ to do. Their rate of return and assets under management simply don’t add up.
It certainly can’t help that CalPERS managers are double-dipping for their own benefits.
High California taxes are one of the reasons the Sacramento Kings are about to become the Seattle Supersonics 2.0. Which seems fitting: the tax-and-spend kings in Sacramento don’t deserve a basketball team.
John Stossel: “It’s good that we have places like Texas and New Hampshire to which fed-up citizens can escape. In Europe, you’d have to leave your country to escape its worst laws.” And one of the states they’re escaping is California, “the Greece of America.”
Meanwhile, Texas notched its 72nd consecutive month with unemployment rates below the national average.
Tags:basketball, Budget, California, CalPERs, Economics, John Stossel, pension crisis, Sacramento, Texas, unions
Posted in Budget, Democrats, Economics, Texas, unions | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013
Another quick roundup of Texas’ economic strength, and California’s blue state decline:
California isn’t just running out of money, it’s running out of children.
Thanks to more honest accounting rules, six more California counties are now officially bankrupt.
Despite which, pension funds are still in denial.
If Jerry Brown is skeptical about making government bigger he has a funny way of showing it.
Namely, he continues to kick the can down the road.
And he’s still handing out outsized benefits to public employee unions.
Texas is adding jobs across all income groups, and has more jobs than when The Great recession began. California hasn’t broken even.
The Texas economy is outpacing other U.S. states because “it has the financial strength of Germany and the cost competitiveness of China.”
Tags:Budget, California, Jerry Brown, pension crisis, Texas, unions, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Democrats, Economics, Republicans, Texas, unions, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
