[Mulderator]

This is absolutely incredible to me that a prominent California Democrat (Bill Lockyer) has finally said what the media is scared to death to say and what I and few other people here in California (and other states) realize--that the corruption that exists between unions and Democrats is so bad that it is now reached the point where California will go bankrupt because Democrats (who run the state) cannot reform the exhorbitant pension benefits that government unions have put in place. You have really go to listen to Lockyer addressing the California Legislature a few days ago:

It’s impossible for this legislature to reform the pension system, and if we don’t, we bankrupt the state. And I don’t think anybody can do it here, because of who elected you. … You’re just captive of the current environment — I don’t see any way out!

When he says "because of who elected you" he of course is not talking about the people, he is talking about the unions--with 99% of their huge political donations going to Democrats (and that's tax payer money by the way), they are afraid to do what they know is the only way to save California--reform the pensions.

I started another thread to talk about the pension plans (many government employees get 90% of their last three years salaries and can retire at age 50--many collect the pension while then working at a second job--many drawing 6 figure pensions while working on building a second pension--its absolutely disgusting!!!).

What will happen is that the Democrats will end up cutting needed and important state and local benefits and services--they will take money away from people who really need it--cut programs for public assistance and helping the poor and on an on an on--its the only thing they can cut if they don't reform the pensions which account a mammoth part of the deficit.

Anyway--if you are a Democrat in California, or you vote for Democrats, you have on your conscience the bankrupting of the state--you have on your conscience the suffering of millions of taxpayers (many struggling families, single mothers, etc,) who are forced to pay for this disgusting corrupt system with exhorbitant taxes where unions get Democrats elected with taxpayer money then force these Democrats to increase taxes to get more money to use to get more Democrats elected and to get even more lavish benefits for them and their members. You have on your conscience the cutting of many programs in this state that actually benefit impoverished and needy families.

Anyone here who can with a straight face can claim the same kind of corruption exists with Republicans you are living in an *&^%* fantasy land. Donations to Democrats and Republicans by private companies is close to equal--with a small edge to Republicans. And even if the Republicans are totally corrupt, they are still powerless to affect the taxpayer in any meaningful way except LESS TAXES becaue the corporations and businesses are sources of tax revenue not users of tax revenuse like the governments.

This is a disgusting system that has bankrupted a once economically powerful state. And its not just this state--its others controlled by Democrats as well (New York and New Jersey and Michigan (Detroit primaily) are prominent examples) where the corruption between state legislators and unions is so grievous the tax burdens on taxpayers are becoming unsustainable.

You Democrats can rationalize this any way you want but no Republican run state has this kind of corruption--go to places like Texas and Florida and you see no state income taxes and much lower taxes and much better run states fiscally--that's because the unions don't have controls of the states. Say what you want about Bush, but what is destroying the economies of the states (and thus affecting the national economy) is the corruption that exists between unions and Democrats--the fact that government unions are running the states, not the people.

And yet this will stuff will not see the light of day in the mainstream media--stupid voters in California and other states will continue to elect Democrats, who will continue to bankrupt the states with payoffs to state and local government unions and their members--its disgusting!!

[iltos]

you think Whitman has a snowball's chance in CA, chris?
should be interesting if jerry brown runs

[Mulderator]

Originally Posted by iltos

you think Whitman has a snowball's chance in CA, chris?
should be interesting if jerry brown runs

Not with the average Moore-On voter we have in this state. I mean look at what we have now--we have the highest taxes in the nation by far all so that public employees can retire as millionairres and these idiots keep re-electing the people who are bending them over and sticking it to them.

The real problem is the press is too scared or to politically aligned to the left to shine a light on this--I have no doubt that if the average dope voting in California realized that half their taxes were going to pay to retire government workers as millionaires they would be so angry they'd revolt. I mean this is taking money (lots of it) away from working families, and people who desperately need it. I frankly wonder how those people sleep at night knowing what they are doing.

But doesn't it shock you that a Democrat actually said this? Could you imagine if this were Republicans doing this? It would be plastered all over the LA Times, and it would be front page news every night. The only place you hear about this is on some radio programs and thats it.

I also find it amazing that he (Lockyer) said that Republicans are more fiscally efficient then Democrats--this is of course something that really isn't debatable--you look at the states run by Democrats and they are financial disasters whereas the ones run by Republicans do much better fiscally.

[ekim68]

Originally Posted by Mulderator

Not with the average Moore-On voter we have in this state.

Do you vote? And, would you consider yourself an average voter?

[LuckyStrike]

Originally Posted by ekim68

Do you vote? And, would you consider yourself an average voter?

Pardon my sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong, but if he was an average voter then would California be deep blue?

[TooBad]

Originally Posted by ekim68

Do you vote? And, would you consider yourself an average voter?

Do you think? And do you consider yourself of average intelligence??

[iltos]

Originally Posted by Mulderator

But doesn't it shock you that a Democrat actually said this?

actually...no....
i mean, i know where you want to take this but more californians than maybe we both imagine see our state economy nowadays as merely a part of the bigger picture.....voters (i'd like to think, anyway) are looking for solutions at that level which are different than what they see going on federally.....for better or for worse, what obama has so far demonstrated is that -at the national level- the rhetoric continues to be vastly different, but the policies (health care being the only exception) seem only nominally different.....and they all advocate a direction uninterrupted by partisanship.

seems to me, then, that voters will be taking a closer look at elections where they feel their own lives count for something....and the smart politicians of both persuasions will be using that as a springboard to speak their mind.

Could you imagine if this were Republicans doing this?

Yeah....more people would be hearing it, but less people would be listening.

It would be plastered all over the LA Times, and it would be front page news every night. The only place you hear about this is on some radio programs and thats it.

the pulse of this country is radio talk, imo....it's one of the reasons that republican radio at the national level gets such a bad rap....listening to both conservative and liberal radio, you really do get a sense for the difference between the two mindsets....both sides are full of blame, of course, but the right seems angrier, at least on the surface....and in that format, that anger is heard (by me, at least) as the sound of sheep.

I also find it amazing that he (Lockyer) said that Republicans are more fiscally efficient then Democrats--this is of course something that really isn't debatable--you look at the states run by Democrats and they are financial disasters whereas the ones run by Republicans do much better fiscally.

but lockyer IS a unique example of a dedicated politician who has always spoken his mind wrt administrative decisions at the state level......both at the liberal and conservative end of the spectrum....he understands that "growth" is not a word that should be used to describe the status quo of government.

in that way, he's very much like whitman

[Mulderator]

Originally Posted by ekim68

Do you vote? And, would you consider yourself an average voter?

Yes and No.

[Mulderator]

Originally Posted by iltos

the pulse of this country is radio talk, imo....it's one of the reasons that republican radio at the national level gets such a bad rap....listening to both conservative and liberal radio, you really do get a sense for the difference between the two mindsets....both sides are full of blame, of course, but the right seems angrier, at least on the surface....and in that format, that anger is heard (by me, at least) as the sound of sheep.

Unfortunately that's not true at all--you are talking at best mabye 20% of the voters actually listening to radio and understanding what's going on. The average person is still getting their news from the soundbites that the mainstream media is filling their heads with and essentially brainwashing them. Ask the average dope here in California if they think teachers are underpaid and you'll get a resounding "YES--ABSOLUTELY" because that's what the media feeds them (driven by the teacher's union) yet every teacher will end up far ahead of most of the rest of the college graduates in overall compensation by the time they die. That's the point--the average dope that votes is a puppet of the liberal media--they have no idea how badly Democrats and the government unions are screwing them over.

I posted this in another thread, but this is a perfect example of how misinformed people are (or at least those that vote Democrat). If you do the math, of the top 100 political donors, here is how it breaks out:

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/index.php

Democrats: $979,231,409 (61%)

Republicans: $626,539,447 (39%)

So Democrats received 353 million dollars more than Republicans in political contributions!!!!

That wouldn't be so bad if it was just that Democrats were better campaigners and the truth of this was put out there by the media--but its not--the media paints a picture of the Republicans as getting all the "corporate" money and screwing the public--its such BS.

This is the REAL EYE OPENER. Lets look at what Unions gave to Dems and Repubs as compared to other donors

Unions
Democrats: $483,373,988 (92%)

Republicans: $42,551,864 (8%)

Difference: $440,822,124

Non-Unions

Democrats: $495,865,414 (46%)

Republicans: $583,987,583 (54%)

Difference: $88,122,170

The truth is that Republicans and Democrats get about equal money from corporate sponsors, but the Unions back Democrats overwhelmingly and they do it using our own tax dollars!!! This is why Democrats are by far the more corrupt political party because they have a system in place whereby they can tap into taxpayer money to use to get them re-elected (via government union dues) so they then tax the people more, which in turn gets the unions more money--its a cycle that is destroying the economies of states run by Democrats, and essentially destroying the US economy. Even in the states run by Republicans, the government Unions have enormous strength especially in the local governments where lavish salaries and benefits are paid to government workers.

This wasn't as big a problem until this latest financial meltdown. The combination of a loss of value in both real estate and securities coupled with the enormous growth of government and government employees and benefits and pensions (all contractually negotiated at constant values) has put us into crisis.

Look--when a Republican makes a sweet deal with a corporation, all we need to do to get out of it, is vote him/her out of office and fix it in the next election (i.e., if you believe Haliburton got its contracts as a gift from Bush, Obama should now be able to fix it--funny though that Haliburton is still getting big government contracts and no one is saying a word! ).

With these union contracts, it is impossible to correct the problem. Even if we vote Democrats out now, they have mortgaged our children's future in that we will be paying this debt for the next 30 to 40 years (because these are contracts they "negotiated" with the unions--an employee promised 90% of his/her pay for life must get it now for life)--while SS is cut and medicare is cut and many people suffer, many government union employees will be receiving 6 figure pensions for life with automatic cost of living increase. Imagine if you will we get some significant inflation (which we will) while that eats away at the average working family's income, the retired government worker's 6 figure retirements will continue to be increased with no way to stop it!!!!

I'm telling you this is BY FAR THE WORSE FISCAL DISASTER AFTER SOCIAL SECURITY that is coming down the pike. Because like SS, we have no way of fixing it--at least with Social Security you just cut the benefits--you can't do that with the government workers pensions. I just think its disgusting the way the mainstream media has ignored this issue to further its own political agenda. We have no freedom of the press in this country--its a joke--the only news station even close is Fox and the liberals are trying to shut that down for criticizing their policies!

If the press were doing its job, people would have known about this a long time ago.

[iltos]

you made your case against the unions in the pension thread.....got no issue with the excess of their influence
but still wonder about this.

Originally Posted by Mulderator

Unfortunately that's not true at all--you are talking at best mabye 20% of the voters actually listening to radio and understanding what's going on. The average person is still getting their news from the soundbites that the mainstream media is filling their heads with and essentially brainwashing them.

you're numbers are close enough, which essentially equates to 80-85% of the electorate being fed their favorite pablum every night....my point is that there's no pulse at all in that .....
radio talk is an interactive format....it has a pulse, and you actually can take a reading from it, imo.

which makes more sense than your generalization

That's the point--the average dope that votes is a puppet of the liberal media--they have no idea how badly Democrats and the government unions are screwing them over.

because a good deal less than your 80% are republicans -even in california....they can't all be brain dead liberals, so there must be a lot of brain dead conservatives out there too, if your generalization is accurate.

[Mulderator]

Originally Posted by iltos

because a good deal less than your 80% are republicans -even in california....they can't all be brain dead liberals, so there must be a lot of brain dead conservatives out there too, if your generalization is accurate.

Yes--there are a lot of brain-dead Republicans as well. The difference is one set of Brain Dead people vote for the party that wants to RAISE THEIR TAXES and shrink government while the other brain-dead people vote for the party that wants to LOWER THEIR TAXES (or at least not raise them) and shrink the government (Bush notwithstanding). So in the battle of the brain dead, by default the brain-dead Republicans are making a much better decision (even if they don't realize it) than the Brain Dead Liberals.

Let's face it--if Democrats had a 2/3rds majority in California (or they needed a simple majority) taxes would already have increased significantly from where they are. Let me make the point clearly with the top 4 states by populaton:

New York and Calfiornia - HUGE TAXES--INCOME, SALES, AND PROPERTY.
Florida and Texas - NO STATE INCOME TAXES--MUCH MORE TAX FRIENDLY!!!!

If you look at the friendliest states for taxes, its no surprise that most of the tax friendly states are Red and most of the tax unfriendly states are Blue:

http://www.mibazaar.com/taxfriendlystates2007.html

Texas is No. 8 and Florida is No 13; Conversely California is No. 39 and New York is 48. No. 1 is Alaska (Red) and No. 50 is Vermont (Blue)

And the bottom line is here its NOT because these states with higher taxes are giving you more services--they are using these tax dollars to grow government and soak up taxes dollars--to give lavish benefits to government workers and to pay back unions for donations. In fact, we get far less services then we did years ago--we now pay for many of the government services that used to be provided at no cost.

Now the most important point to take out of all of this is that we need to shrink the government, federal, state, and local. The framers knew that government was a cancer that would grow to the point of collapsing on itself and they did a good job of setting up a Constitution to prevent that--the problem is that Constitution has been thoroughly re-written. And of course the Democrat party would like nothing better than to grow the government to the point where it is the economy--where everything is run by and controlled by the government. I believe that economic philosophy is called communism.

Not claiming the Republicans are completely innocent--but the "no brainer" choice is pick the party that wants to reduce government and reduce taxes--that's the right choice every time. If Democrats ever realize that's what needs to be done, then vote for them--but I don't see that happening in my lifetime. If we could have the country run by Libertarians we would be golden!!!