http://open.salon.com/blog/richard_rider/2010/08/06/city_of_bell_scandal_continues_to_grow

Why should a city be allowed to pass their obligations to others? It’s obvious that the City of Bell greatly overpaid some of their employees and the pool of cities to which they belong will be forced to pick up the retirement tab.

Now let’s look at the proposed San Diego Sales Tax increase. As Council member DeMaio has pointed out, there is no mention of reform to the benefits of the members of the Council. I must ask, why is that? Real reform should start at the top, and not at the bottom.

Once again, I request that the actuaries get involved and make it a requirement to show the long term requirements of benefits to the public. Only then, I hope, that the public will wake up and see the real costs of these benefit packages.

First of all, my disclaimer. I am a government employee.

I hope that someone can answer my questions and clear up my thoughts. We hear about government pensions being underfunded.

When these pension plans are calculated, why aren’t the long term costs revealed during contract negotiations?

Why shouldn’t the agency that employed the employee be responsible for the full retirement costs (and any makeup expenses) than expecting the retirement fund to make it up? Some agencies promise full retirement medical, and others don’t. Why is that? How come one agency can “afford” that expense, while another can’t?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/nyregion/22nopay.html

How creative! For New York lawmakers, no budget means no pay. Sacramento faces the same issues, but our elected officials in Sacramento continue to get paid when there is no budget. Let us NOT forget that it’s these people that got us in this mess, and are always coming up with no real solution to it (They tend to like the smoke and mirror approach). So let’s follow New York’s lead and stop paying them.

First of all, I don’t blame Bush for it. Obama has been in office for over a year, so it’s his fault. If you might recall, Obama’s administration had just recently given this platform a safety award.

Second, the oil companies lease these drill rights from the US government. Now if I was a landowner who was going to lease/rent my property, I would make sure that the renter had the adequate insurance so my investment would not be ruined, it fact, it would be part of my agreement with them.  I’m pretty sure the US had such an agreement. If my agreement said “no smoking” and it turned out that someone was smoking in my house and it burnt down because of that, I would go after that renter for all of my costs. The US should do the same, but apparently there is an agreement that BP is only responsible for up to 75 million. What a shame.

So how many of us think Sacramento will really solve their budget crisis with REAL solutions instead of the usual “smoke and mirrors”? Not me.

Doesn’t this approach scare you? Doesn’t it anger you that Sacramento can come down and raid the coffers of school districts, cities, counties and other agencies to “balance” their budget, while making these agencies look like the bad guy since they are now forced to cut even more?

The immigration issue is a hard one to decide. People try to make it a Mexican vs USA issue and it’s not, in fact, it’s much broader. I recall about a year ago that a person was caught fishing illegally off the coast of La Jolla. Turned out the person was here illegally from Iran. This person had his hands slapped and that was it. I’m sorry, but if I was in another country as a legal alien or as an ILLEGAL alien, and was caught breaking the law, I would understand if that country told me to leave. When you are in a foreign county, you should be doing your best to obey the law, or face immediate deportation.