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EducateWorthington.org

The 912 Project - Glenn Beck

912 Group of Central Ohio

Please let me know if you'd like your link added

[California Cities Cut Police Budgets]

California Cities Cut Police Budgets

Excerpts:


The legislation granted thousands of public-safety workers a retirement payout of 90% of their former salaries for life.

an average police officer now makes $121,000. When benefits are included, the number rises to more than $190,000. By 2007, 80% of Vallejo's budget was dedicated to police and firefighters.

Retired Vallejo employees are owed almost $220 million in unfunded pension and retirement-health benefits.

"We did a bad job of long-term forecasting," said Craig Whittom, Vallejo's assistant city manager. "We made agreements that were beyond our means."


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122540831980086085.html

[We could say [Democrats] spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors. It would be unfair, because the sailors are spending their own money. --Ronald ReaganAl Gore didn't invent the internet, he invented global warmingThe welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants - CamusThe person who advocates government planning of the economy always assumes that it is his plan that will be put into effect. --Hayek]

As Home Values Fall, Property Tax Revolt Brews
In many cities across the US, homeowners are filing record numbers of assessment appeals, wanting their property taxes to reflect their shrinking value of their houses.
By PATRIK JONSSON

Homeowners watching the value of their houses slowly ebb are storming tax offices from Ann Arbor, Mich., to Atlanta, demanding that county officials reassess their homes and lower their property taxes.
As home values fall, property tax revolt brews

It is a question of fairness, says Gene Burleson of Atlanta, who stood in line April 1 to appeal his assessment. His house has lost 25 percent of its value since it was last assessed, he adds: "I'm just trying to insulate myself from coming tax increases."

Property taxes have become a rallying point for disgruntled Americans because, unlike sales or income taxes, they can be challenged directly by individual citizens: Some 40 percent of assessment appeals are successful. Yet the movement threatens already stressed counties, putting the tax receipts that pays for schools and police at risk.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=7254270&page=1

[We could say [Democrats] spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors. It would be unfair, because the sailors are spending their own money. --Ronald ReaganAl Gore didn't invent the internet, he invented global warmingThe welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants - CamusThe person who advocates government planning of the economy always assumes that it is his plan that will be put into effect. --Hayek]

The Tax Capital of the World
States are raising taxes despite the 'stimulus'; New York is No. 1.

Like the old competition to have the world's tallest building, New York can't resist having the nation's highest taxes. So after California raised its top income tax rate to 10.55% last month, Albany's politicians leapt into action to reclaim high-tax honors. Maybe C-Span can make this tax competition a new reality TV series; Carla Bruni, the first lady of France, could host.
[Review & Outlook] Getty Images

They can invite politicians from the at least 10 other states that are also considering major tax hikes, including Oregon, Illinois, Wisconsin, Washington, Arizona and New Jersey. One explicit argument for the $787 billion "stimulus" bill was to help states avoid these tax increases that even Keynesians understand are contractionary. Instead, the state politicians are pocketing the federal cash to maintain spending, and raising taxes anyway. Just another spend-and-tax bait and switch.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123940286075109617.html

In Yonkers, more than 100 retired police officers and firefighters are collecting pensions greater than their pay when they were working. One of the youngest, Hugo Tassone, retired at 44 with a base pay of about $74,000 a year. His pension is now $101,333 a year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/business/economy/21pension.html

Are you brave enough to see your future?



not an oppressed underclass, but a pampered overclass

The problem facing the Western world isn’t very difficult to figure out: we’ve spent tomorrow today, and we can never earn enough tomorrow to pay for what we’ve already burned through. When you’re spending four trillion dollars but only raising two trillion in revenue (the Obama model), you’ve no intention of paying it off, and the rest of the world knows it.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/05/20/not-just-their-big-fat-greek-funeral/

Alabama Town’s Failed Pension Is a Warning

PRICHARD, Ala. — This struggling small city on the outskirts of Mobile was warned for years that if it did nothing, its pension fund would run out of money by 2009. Right on schedule, its fund ran dry. Then Prichard did something that pension experts say they have never seen before: it stopped sending monthly pension checks to its 150 retired workers, breaking a state law requiring it to pay its promised retirement benefits in full.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Alabama-Towns-Failed-Pension-nytimes-93215960.html;_ylt=At9cKbN0jUvtpdC_tjFvWfy7YWsA;_ylu=X3oDMTFhaXRxb2k5BHBvcwM0BHNlYwNzcGVjaWFsRmVhdHVyZXMEc2xrA2FsYWJhbWF0b3ducw--?x=0

The Shadow better become a fiscal conservative real soon.

State Budgets: Day of Reckoning
Steve Kroft reports on the precarious financial conditions many states are facing and what they're doing about it.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/nP3b0_fnPxQ&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/nP3b0_fnPxQ&rel=0</a>

US Cities Facing Bankruptcy If They Don't Make Deep Cuts In 2011

http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#san-diego-calif-1

[bankruptcy for states]

Why The Shadow should be a Conservative

Path Is Sought for States to Escape Debt Burdens
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/business/economy/21bankruptcy.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&src=busln

Mr. Skeel said it was possible to envision how bankruptcy for states might work by looking at the existing law for local governments. Called Chapter 9, it gives distressed municipalities a period of debt-collection relief, which they can use to restructure their obligations with the help of a bankruptcy judge.

Unfunded pensions become unsecured debts in municipal bankruptcy and may be reduced. And the law makes it easier for a bankrupt city to tear up its labor contracts than for a bankrupt company

Watch the collapse.
Coming to a municipality near you.


On Jan. 4, an actuarial firm reported that the $13.1 billion San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System now had an unfunded liability of $1.6 billion — triple its shortfall a year earlier.

In spite of the shortfall, Mr. Amelio and the system’s board quietly decreed in mid-December that “excess” earnings on investments in 2010 entitled retirees to an unexpected cost-of-living increase of as much as 3.5 percent this year. The special $170 million bonus is in excess of regular cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/us/21bccola.html?_r=1

"Using public records act requests they have identified thousands of retired public employees and educators across the state who are drawing six-figure pensions. "
http://ronkayela.com/2009/07/sixfigure-city-worker-pensions.html


"$239,000 Conductor Among M.T.A.’s 8,000 Six-Figure Workers"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/nyregion/03mta.html?_r=1


"a Vallejo police sergeant making $150,000 a year can now retire at age 50 and receive an annual pension of $135,000, increased each year for inflation. To put that amount in context, you would need to amass a retirement nest egg equal to about $3.5 million to produce a similar retirement income on your own. It wasn't just police and firefighters who benefited from the city's largess. The annual pensions for rank-and-file city employees were jacked up from 60% of final pay at age 55 (after a 30-year career) to a whopping 80% of pay, increased each year for inflation. Other towns in trouble; here's the scary part: What's going on Vallejo isn't unique."
http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/02/pf/retirement/vallejo.moneymag/index.htm?postversion=2008060305

[The city begged the public-employee unions for pay cuts — all to no avail.]

Vallejo, a city about 25 miles north of San Francisco, offers a sneak preview of what could be the latest version of economic disaster. When the foreclosure wave hit, local tax revenue evaporated. The city managers couldn’t make their budget and eliminated financing for the local museum, the symphony and the senior center. The city begged the public-employee unions for pay cuts — all to no avail. In May 2008, Vallejo filed for bankruptcy. The filing drew little national attention; most people were too busy watching banks fail to worry about cities

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/magazine/06Muni-t.html?_r=1

[We could say [Democrats] spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors. It would be unfair, because the sailors are spending their own money. --Ronald ReaganAl Gore didn't invent the internet, he invented global warmingThe welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants - CamusThe person who advocates government planning of the economy always assumes that it is his plan that will be put into effect. --Hayek]

Welfare nation: Government handouts make up ONE THIRD of America's salaries and wages

By David Gardner

Government handouts now make up a record-breaking one third of the total amount of wages and salaries in the U.S., according to a bombshell new study.

The payouts – including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance – are placing an increasing burden on the state at a time it is trying to dig itself out from a mountain of debt.

And economists fear the toll on taxpayers will only increase further if quick action isn’t taken before the majority of baby boomers reach retirement age.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1364450/Welfare-nation-Government-handouts-make-ONE-THIRD-Americas-salaries-wages.html#ixzz1G6PI7tIr

BY THE NUMBERS

Portion of wages and salaries made up by social benefits this year: 35%

Portion prior to the recession: 26%

Portion in 2000: 21%

Portion in 1960: 10%

Amount wages and salaries would have to increase by to return welfare to pre-recession levels: $2.3trillion

Amount welfare benefits would have to decline by to return to pre-recession levels: $500billion