Guest Commentary
by George Plescia
The budget deadline is today.
And yet this morning’s Sacramento Bee headline says it all, “California lawmakers race to pass a budget with little time to read it.” So much for transparency. Nobody would want to read exactly how the state proposes to spend $91 billion dollars before they vote on it. All this so they can get paid.
Which brings us to the deficit: $17 billion – and counting. Every day that the Legislature delays real pension reform, it costs the state $3.4 million a day, according to the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research pension study. That is because the state is saddled by $500 billion in unfunded public employee retiree’s health and pension benefits. You can’t dig the state out of the deficit ditch without real pension reform.
San Diego and San Jose voters understood this and passed real pension reform in both cities by astonishing margins – 66% and 70% respectively. They understand, as the Democrat legislators who control everything in Sacramento do not, that this day of reckoning must happen to avoid disaster.
My Democrat opponent, Assemblyman Marty Block, was here in San Diego on election night. The voter’s mandate on pension reform in San Diego is crystal clear. And the facts state-wide are indisputable: There is no way to address the budget deficit without pension reform. Marty Block has delayed pension reform for two years, adding $2.5 billion to California’s debt.
Even though no one actually knows what is in the $91 billion budget they will be voting on today, we can be certain that there will be no pension reform in it and that Marty Block will nonetheless vote yes for this sham budget.
Marty Block needs to lead and demand real pension reform before passing this budget.
Or maybe Marty thinks San Diego’s voters got it wrong last week.