( A really old video from when Peter Foy was running for office when he said he didn't support benefits for county employees who are registered domestic partners. If you have any new Peter Foy videos let me know.)
Peter Foy recently gave a speech at Ventura County Taxpayers Association where he was asked to speak on the topic "your money or the government's money".
Setting aside the simplistic question ( seriously, do you expect he, or anyone, was going to go in and claim it is the government's money?) Peter Foy said that the state is on the way to bankruptcy.
He talked about the subprime mortgage crisis and expressed that he is against any bailout of homeowners or banks. Whatever other criticisms people have of him at least he is ideologically consistent.
Peter Foy proclaimed that he is against welfare and said "I believe that welfare is the greatest enslavement this country has ever seen."
What do you think of Peter Foy's assessment in regards to the problems with the state budget and the role of government?
On a slightly related note check out google today. Since Peter Foy thinks the private sector and people can help without government will you be turning off the lights? Do you think Peter Foy will turn off his lights?
State on its way to bankruptcy, Foy tells group
By Rachel McGrath
Ventura County Supervisor Peter Foy warned Thursday that California is going to spend itself into bankruptcy unless taxpayers pressure officials to be accountable for how they spend tax dollars.
Foy, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, issued his warning to a lunchtime audience of the Ventura County Taxpayers Association in Thousand Oaks.
Asked to speak on the subject of whether taxes are "your money or the government's money," Foy was unequivocal.
"I believe it's my money and not the government's," he said. "It's critical that we have people in government who believe it's your money and think hard about how they spend it."
Foy cited state government statistics showing that state spending increased by 32 percent from 2003 to 2008, but revenues during that period did not keep up. California faces a projected shortfall of $6.3 billion this year.
Foy said that during the 12-month period that ended Feb. 29, state government spent $108 billion but received only $95 billion in revenue.
"Unless there's a grass-roots effort saying we're done with this spending, we're in trouble," he said.
Foy, a businessman and 24-year resident of Simi Valley, was elected in 2006 to represent a district that includes Simi Valley and Moorpark.
He told his audience that there is a growing culture of entitlement and a broadening of the role of government, which, he said, leads people to expect the government to help them out when things go wrong.
Bailouts are questioned
He cited the subprime mortgage crisis and the emergency rescue of the investment banking and brokerage firm Bear Stearns.
"I struggle with any kind of bailout," he said. "If I take out a loan, I am responsible for paying it. I don't believe it's right to take money from someone else's pocket to pay for my loan."
He said mortgage defaults were predictable. "If you give money to people who can't pay, they're going to default. The taxpayer has to be protected, not the banks and the homeowners."
In his speech, Foy pointed to two examples of where he believes the state government is misusing tax revenues: education and welfare.
"We're giving more money to educate fewer children," he said, pointing to the 2008-09 state budget in which K-12 spending will increase by $7.4 billion from five years ago even though many school districts have a decline in enrollment.
Welfare also a target'
He also criticized California's increasing spending on welfare, arguing that it is the task of philanthropists, churches and charities to help the deserving poor, and not primarily the government's job.
"We don't have to have welfare, and we don't have to put people in a situation where they don't go out and look for work," he said.
"I believe that welfare is the greatest enslavement this country has ever seen."
Foy praised members of taxpayers' groups and urged them to "be willing to get up and speak, to understand the issues, to go to the county Board of Supervisors meetings and challenge them."
"Until you grasp the idea that it's your money and not the government's," he said, "nothing is going to change."
This is a very refreshing perspective to see in government today. Most politicians at the State and local levels are accustomed to advocating for greater spending on government programs and services. God knows are State Legislature has an insatiable addiction to spending, hence the budget crises we are are having to deal with year after year.
Until we have the fiscal discipline, as Pete Foy suggests, to reign in spending at the State level, this will continue to be a never-ending cycle. If we raise taxes, as the public seems to be more amenable to at the moment, the Legislature will simply devise new ways of spending this money. They need to be cut off, cold turkey, like the hopeless addict, in order to see the errors of their ways. This is a systemic, structural problem that needs a structural solution, not just an infusion of more money to feed the spending addicts.
He's telling us to be happy that schools are getting more than five years ago? In 2003, the year I helped form Save Our Schools, the state budget deficit was estimated to be well over $30 billion. Ventura Unified was looking at a $6 million hit to their budget that year.
Let's see.. that was the year we lost our School Resource Officers, the AVID program, the peer counselors, the reading specialists, librarians, etc. etc. etc.
Now we're only looking at a cut of $4 million. Oh lucky us.
Funny....I happen to agree with the Supervisor that neither borrowers NOR lenders should be bailed out. In a most libertarian moment for me I think we should let the dice roll on the mortgage crisis and let the two victims of their own doings take the hit OR let them work out a solution that doesn't require taxpayers to underwrite the losses.
I need to speak to this declining school enrollment issue over here, too:
What generally happens to school districts with declining enrollment is that their facilities, teaching and other costs remain fixed since it is usually only a few children per grade. But they receive less from the state per student because of the declining enrollment. The enrollment declines don't come in neat little packages of 30 students per grade. So you couldn't lay off one teacher to offset.
So while they have to maintain the status quo, they are losing money per pupil which comes out of costs which aren't fixed such as librarians, technology specialists, and counselors.
While declining enrollment helps ease the burden to expand facilities and add portable classrooms, that money can and should go to facilities upgrades. So many of our schools in this state are in bad shape.
When districts try to close schools because of declining enrollment, parents go ballistic. (Witness the uproar in the Conejo)
I must add that I am overjoyed that Steve Bennett is my supervisor and not Foy.
Yes, Marie we have heard that you like Bennett better than Foy, but what does that have to do with school funding? Neither one plays a direct role in those decisions. It's our spendaholic representatives in Sacramento that are the cause of all the State budget problems.
The greatest enslavement wasn't slavery?
Exactly, Mongo, so why would we take Foy's word in school funding matters? It didn't appear to me that he had a firm grasp on education funding issues at all. But maybe it didn't matter, considering the audience he was speaking to.
The budget dilemma is a many-pronged issue, which can't be neatly blamed on any one source.
" ...it is the task of philanthropists, churches and charities to help the deserving poor..."
Hey Pete,
None of these groups have the money to do a fraction of that job, nor have they for some time. When you get time to visit the real world, you might see that these groups are often going begging for the resources to keep their doors open.
It is the task of these united states to ensure a more perfect union of all its states and all its people and that can not be accomplished by dividing the nation's people into portions and spinning off those portions into the care of a multitude of private interests. Philanthropists, churches and charities can help but they each have their own goals & agendas and to abandon the People wholly to these interests for the sake of economy is not only wrong, it also makes our government unnecessary.
If those who advocate such practices feel that the United states of America is unnecessary and should be dissolved, then they should come out and say so.
Supervisor Foy:
You stated in your speech to the Ventura County Taxpayers Association that, "..it is the task of philanthropists, churches and charities to help the deserving poor.." yet you appear to have had no compunction in using County Taxpayer money to orchestrate quite an extravaganza last Tuesday before the Board of Supervisors honoring outgoing CEO Johnny Johnston..
By my count, there were more than three dozen County elected and appointed officials, each making more than $100 K per year attending that taxpayer funded ceremony in the Board of Supervisors meeting room, which lasted close to two hours.
And how about that expensive video you produced? How much taxpayers money did it cost to produce that video? And why isn't it posted on the County Board's website for all to see, rather than just the few County elites present at the ceremony? After all, taxpayers' money was used to fund it, wasn't it?
By the way, based on the amount of time you were before the camera and prominently featured on that video, it appears that the video may have been more about you than the honoree, Mr. Johnston.
As I watched your performance, I was struck by the fact that it may have been more of a Screen Test for one of your future campaign spots, rather than a tribute to Mr. Johnston.
Why don't you post that video on the County's website, especially since the taxpayers paid for its production, as well as your salary, and the salary of all those other high-paid County executives featured in the video?
And, by the way, pursuant to the County's Campaign Finance Reform Ordinance, do you plan on declaring the cost of that taxpayer-funded video on your next Campaign Financing Statement?
Mr. Foy, it seems to me that you are being quite disengenous, and selective when you preach frugality with the public's money. You are very quick to pander to the Ventura County Taxpayers Association by blaming the State, but you fail to attend to your own house, the County, at least in this regard.
As Scripture wisely teaches us, "..Physician, heal thyself!.."
Ezekial Scrooge
GS, you've made my point, as well as Foy's, very well in the last sentence of your first paragraph. The founding fathers never intended the government to become this out-of-control behemoth that it has become. They intended for a limited role of government - to provide for basic necessities for the common well-being of the people.
The United States of America is a nation founded by the people, for the people, not by the government, for the government. Less has always been better...
I read an interesting book recently, "Saving General Washington: The Right Wing Assault on America's Founding Principles."
There was a line in it that I particularly liked: "These days, when you hear the Founding Fathers mentioned in public, it's for one of two reasons: someone is saying something boring about history or a Republican office holder is lying to the public." ...
The Founding Fathers foresaw what happens when "no new taxes" supplants "good government" as the law of the land. Alexander Hamilton warned of civil chaos caused by a government starved of revenue and unable to address new crises.
Thomas Jefferson, as I pointed out on another thread, was a huge proponent of public education.
Mongo...
"The founding fathers never intended the government to become this out-of-control behemoth that it has become. They intended for a limited role of government - to provide for basic necessities for the common well-being of the people."
And yet the Supervisor suggests that government should NOT do this? That it should be left up to private interests?
No one intends for any institution to become an out-of-control behemoth yet from time to time it happens. When it does, our government is expected to reign in those out-of-control issues. perhaps we should allow churches, philanthropists and charities to give to the wealthy, the hedge funds,the energy companies and their like rather than forcing the taxpayers to foot the bill every time Schwarzenoggin's retirement portfolio's about to take a hit. Or maybe instead of you and I bailing out Cheney's companies with mutli-billion dollar no-bid, secret contracts we can have church bake sales handle those costs. And perhaps, instead of my chidren's children footing the bill for a $3.6Tr mideast bamboozle, our government can start taking care of its own peoples' basic necessities.
Then AFTER all those costs are picked up by philanthropists, churches and charities we can take a real look at government spending and actually do what's needed to provide basic necessities to our people, for the well being of a more united USA.
This man doesn't really think before he speaks I am led to believe if he really thinks welfare in the form of food stamps, housing, health care, and access to education is just as bad, brutal, and immoral as the enslavement of millions of Africans that lasted centuries. He should think before he speaks. Maybe he could focus cutting waste instead of talking about it.
Any big change in the budget yet because of him?
Peter Foy giving a lecture on finances is like getting a lecture from President Bush on how to speak english! Foy had dozens of liens against him for stiffing people out of money over the years. A majority of voters in California want a mix of revenue increases and cuts to balance the budget. These loud mouths like Foy always scream about waste, but they never say what waste. Does he mean the $306,000 his good buddy Tom McClintock has ripped off from taxpayers? Arnold said he too would balance the budget by finding waste and then he said he really could not find much waste once he got to Sacramento. Foy wants to take money from childrens education and the poor, gosh, he really is a tough guy for beating up on kids and the sick and elderly!
Wrong again, Bubba's Little Boy. What Arnold actually found when he got to Sacramento were powerful teachers' and prison guards' unions that were willing to spend millions to thwart any reasonable attempts to cut spending in their over-inflated bureaucracies. To put it in ironic terms, he got an "education" on how the game is played at the State level where powerful lobbyists and unions rule the day and an entrenched State bureaucracy backed up by the Democratic-controlled Legislature prove to be one tough nut to crack, even for The Terminator.
As usual Mongo you sound like a complete idiot. I seem to remember Arnold took his initiatives "Straight to da people" as he would say and they voted no. Even a majority of republicans voted no. When people go into the booth they can vote how they choose and they did not choose Arnold's initiatives. For you to blame teachers and firefighters and cops is really pathetic on your part. I have also quit calling you Mango because I like Mangoes and you are not worthy to even be called a piece of fruit.
Wow, Mongo! Most folk remember that when The Governator needed it the teachers' union gave him a gift by giving up a few billion to help him balance the budget.
Ezekial,
You are probably going to feel pretty stupid when I tell you this-- Foy paid for Johnny's party out of his own pocket! Go figure- guess you never thought an elected official actually cared enough to spend his own money on something for another person- Supervisor Foy contiues to impress us all. And another thing- the other supervisors are all pitching to pay for the award they presented to Johhny! Wow did I just burst your bubble Ezekial?? Sorry to let you down- there are actually decent, honest "politicians"! But shhhhhhhh lets keep this between us- Foy wouldnt want people to know he paid for it. And I heard he put on a pretty great party!
Oh and by the way- the video is on the website for all to enjoy!
Ken,
If all of that is true that is great. Thanks for keeping people informed.
Ken:
No, I don't feel stupid, Ken.
If indeed Supervisor Foy paid for Johnny's party out of his own pocket, then that would be personally generous and respectful of the public's purse.
But since Ventura County is the home of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, surely you will remember his favorite Russian proverb? You know the one that goes, "Dovyerai no provyerai," which translates to English as, "trust, but verify." Accordingly, it should be no trouble at all for either he or you to post a PDF copy of the caterer's paid receipt VERIFYING your claim. When can Dennert bloggers expect to see such documentary evidenced posted on this website??
By the way. Did Supervisor Foy's generosity extend to paying the salaries of all those high-paid senior County Executive Managers who participated in that nearly two hour ceremony in the Board of Supervisors' Meeting room?
If he did, then he's not only frugal, he's a real "Mensch." Please include documentary verification of that level of personal generosity in your next website posting, will you Ken? I'm sure that the Ventura County Taxpayers Association would like to see that proof as well.
Anxiously awaiting proof of your claim that Supervisor Foy was very gentle with the County Taxpayers'public purse.
Ezekial
Marie-
If Steve Bennett had been smart enough, or remotely brave enough, to support Dantona, Foy might not be anybody's Supervisor. But Bennett was neither. Now Bennett is under siege by another Salem Broadcasting/Strickland Machine/Religious Right goon of his own. Hey that worked out well, huh Steve?