Schwarzenegger: Public Pensions and Our Fiscal Future

1. California can't afford to pay promised pensions. 2. Public pensions are far more generous than similar private sector retirement options.

I'd like to know:

Are the facts as presented correct? Any errors or misleading statements? If not, then the governor's argument is very strong.

A Republican attacking size of government is par for the course. He assails unions, also par for the course for a Republican. Is he also ignoring special pro-business,anti-tax interest groups that influence his side of the aisle (also par for the course). Having said that, seems to me that assuming his facts are straight that changes are needed.

Personal bias: Except for first responders, my own perception of government employees is one of rude, under-skilled and self-entitled people who unlike private sector employees don't have to worry about: customer satisfaction, providing value, increasing sales or the company's profitability. In fact, just as an example anecdote, when I was in the military, my experience was that one had to spend as much of the allotted budget or else next year's budget would be smaller. So at the end of the year we ordered a bunch of useless shit we didn't need, created fake orders etc just so we could spend enough to match our budget. The focus wasn't on reducing spending. Seems like government employees fill up some allotted headcount by breathing air, and maybe get some work done sometimes.

I realize that my personal bias is probably wrong, which is why it's called a 'bias.'

"Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data are the latest available."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/federal-workers-earning-doubl...

1) Orange County went bankrupt by cooking the books. After the scandal broke, their treasurer went to jail.

2) The Republican administration turned a blind eye to the Democratic treasurer's malfeasance because it was allowing them to keep taxes very low, which was making their government very popular.

3) The government refused to raise even a temporary tax to avoid bankruptcy, as that position was highly unpopular among the wealthy residents of the county. At various points the county insisted that it should receive bailouts from the California state and federal government, which drew anger from across the nation as Orange County is among the wealthiest places in the nation.

4) In bankruptcy, Orange County cut $200 million from its budget by clawing back commitments to its low level employees who had no part in the high level corruption, as well as through layoffs and reduced services. The OC bankruptcy, from the perspective of the average person, is like a minified version of the bank bailouts. It was a "heads I win, tails you lose" bargain between the wealthy people of OC and the average people who were hurt most by the layoffs and reduced services.

People need to learn that you pay as you go, that's why 401ks are great the total cost of an employee is understood completely.

Taking debt in someone else's name, which is what essentially all government debt is, is fundamentally immoral and shouldn't be allowed. It causes people to be reckless since they're not the ones paying for it.