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Health & Fitness

Every Day Is "Opposite Day" In California

Wasteful spending and crazy legislation play on in Sacramento

For those of you who are avid “Seinfeld” fans, you fondly recall the “Opposite Day” episode, when George became a genius and Elaine turned into a dingbat.  The only chance of catching a rerun of that classic display of craziness is either reruns on television, DVD, or YouTube.  Fortunately, or actually, unfortunately, every day is “Opposite Day” here in California when one observes the insanity that Democrats produce in Sacramento.  I’ve chronicled below some of the more recent egregious chunks of excremental legislation that has been defecated upon us from these liberal lunatics.  There isn’t a waste-water treatment or compost facility in the world that can break-down this garbage for any sort of useful re-cycling.  Hold your nose and prepare yourself to blow chunks into a barf bag:

 

1.  Local law enforcement agencies would be prohibited from detaining people for deportation if they are living in the country illegally and are arrested for a minor crime, under a bill approved by the state Senate on Monday, September 9th.  The bill passed 24-10 along party lines and returns to the Assembly for a final vote before it can go to the governor’s desk.  AB4 by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, creates a statewide standard for how local agencies comply with the federal Secure Communities program, which requires law enforcement to check the immigration status of anyone arrested. Some local governments have detained those who are found to be in the country illegally until they can be picked up by immigration officials.  Ammiano is the same dufus who gave us AB 1266. which was passed by the Legislature and signed by Governor Jerry Brown and takes effect on January 1, 2014 unless a referendum is qualified giving voters the final say. The new law provides that any student shall be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the student’s actual gender.  Can’t wait to see little George, or Georgette, using the girls restroom, dressing and undressing in the girls locker room, and playing on the girls middle school basketball team!  As long as he/she feels better about his/herself, it doesn’t matter that the majority of the kids are offended by his/her actions!

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2. Meanwhile, a bill just introduced by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, would allow unauthorized immigrants to practice law as long as they pass the state bar exam. Gonzalez said her Assembly Bill 1024 to allow unauthorized immigrants to practice law is in response to the plight of Sergio Garcia, a Chico man who graduated from college and passed the state bar exam, but may be prohibited from his profession by the courts because he is still on the waiting list for a green card.  Boo-hoo, Mr. Garcia!  Wait until you receive your green card; then you can practice law in this country.  And the pro-union, pro-illegal immigration Ms. Gonzalez also plans to run for Mayor of San Diego?  Bob Filner will be proud, even though she did stab him in the back and call for his resignation.

3.  Speaking of San Diego, it became the latest of more than 40 charter cities in California to pass a “prevailing wage” ordinance that calls for paying generally higher wages to private contractors working on city construction and maintenance projects. The City Council on Tuesday, September 10th reaffirmed its 5-4 decision (again, along party lines; Democrats hold the majority) to adopt the ordinance that originally passed in late July as one of the final major initiatives of Mayor Filner’s administration. The city’s budget analyst says it will add roughly 5% to the price tag of future construction projects. That translates to as much as $26 million in additional costs for projects planned for fiscal 2014, according to the analyst. In addition, the analyst said it would cost between $700,000 and $1.5 million annually to hire staff and implement the ordinance.  You gotta feel good, San Diegans!  Five idiots on the City Council decided for you to give another $26 million to the private sector labor unions that got them voted into office.  And, the city will hire another $700K-$1.5M in dead-wood staff to sit on their hands and supposedly “monitor” the implementation of the ordinance; jobs which of course, will never be eliminated even after the ordinance has been “implemented.” Wonder if those jobs will go to labor union employees?  Well played, Councilmembers Gloria, Alvarez, Emerald, Lightner, and Cole! 

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4.  Then there is welfare.  As much as Governor “Moe” Brown and his two other Stooges, “Larry” Steinberg and “Curley” Perez proclaim that “California is back” economically and is pro-business, no one in the press ever asks why California's enrollment in welfare programs is so high. Rampant fraud and abuse occurring right under the government's nose gets little media attention. As of December 31,2011, the number of Californians enrolled in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families was 1.412 million, meaning that a state with about 12% of the nation's population had just under 33% of those collecting traditional welfare. In the past year, national enrollment in the food stamp program is up by 4.8%; in California, it's up by 8.5% .

As to fraud and abuse, here is some of what CalWatchdog discovered in July, 2011:

Reported in  the Orange County Register, “California is nearly twice as big as New York state, but we have five times as many welfare cases. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, our state is one of the only nine that does not enforce the federal government’s five year lifetime limit on cash welfare assistance. The monthly cash check is almost 70 percent higher than the national average.”

The prevalence of welfare fraud is disheartening. ...... Besides the gross misuse of welfare benefits, recipients are not meeting their expected work requirements.  Out of a sample of 310 welfare cases, only five individuals participated in activities that moved their family toward self-sufficiency, according to a California Department of Social Services’s study in March 2011. Only 60 of the 310 cases participated in countable work activities.  Yep, California is back alright!  On it’s back is the more apt description!

 

5.  Perhaps the most galling of all was the blatant lie that was Proposition 30.  Already among the best compensated state workers in the nation, tens of thousands of California employees are set to receive pay raises along with an end to unpaid furlough days and an increase in the state’s contributions to their health care.  The state worker increases total more than $480 million in the spending plan signed this past July by Gov. Brown.  The 2% to 5% pay increases, negotiated by the Schwarzenegger administration, will be added to the top of each pay range for about 80 percent of the workforce. Others would receive similar hikes after reaching that level of seniority for a year.  Raises account for about $420 million of the added cost, with roughly $60 million going to health and dental care. Because of the way the state has accounted for furlough days, the cost of restoring those paid hours could not be calculated (yeah, right).  California state employees already have the highest average salary at $70,777, according to a study last fall by the nonpartisan Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto. That compares with the national average of $54,976 in 2011, according to the same study.

In calling for an increase, the Service Employees International Union invoked its support of Brown’s Proposition 30 sales and income tax increases approved by voters in November. The measure, which hiked the sales tax a quarter cent on the dollar and boosted income taxes on the wealthy on a sliding scale, was sold as a fix for school budgets, but also freed up billions of dollars of state money previously mandated to be spent on schools, but instead was diverted to state employees.

And Ol’ Moonbeam isn’t done re-paying his public-employee union supporters.  Last week, Sacramento announced a new three-year contract for about 7,000 state workers in public safety and inspection jobs that will add about $26.5 million in costs through fiscal 2015-16, according to a just-published review by the Legislative Analyst's Office.

The centerpiece of the agreement with the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association and Gov. Jerry Brown is a 3 percent raise on July 1, 2015. The union represents employees including California Highway Patrol dispatchers, Department of Motor Vehicles licensing-registration examiners, park rangers and game wardens.

Two other employee subsets in the union, state hospital police officers and developmental center peace officers, are in line for an additional 4.67 percent bump on the same date. Pretty generous, wouldn’t you say?  The agreement also gives employees the option to cash out up to 20 hours of vacation or annual leave each year at their employing department's discretion.  Can you cash-out unused vacation every year?  Didn’t think so.

There's no official estimate of what that would cost, although the LAO says it would be "a few million dollars in any given year." While the leave buyouts would hit departments in the short-term, the state claims they're a long-term savings because employees who cash out when they exit state service do so at their final pay rate. Then eliminate that freaking benefit, already!!!!

The nonsense never ends, nor will it, until the state files for bankruptcy.  I hate to admit it, but the majority of the electorate in California either doesn’t care or is apathetic to the fact that they, themselves, keep electing morons to run the government.  I’m convinced that liberals will continue to run amok in Sacramento, until which time the papering-over of their financial malfeasance will eventually expose their callousness and carelessness.

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