These are our neighbors, and friends and community. 

I'm tired of the selfish "I got mine" mentality we see with the "tea party" Faux News crowd. Voters rejected A 1-D because they want to see the level of services preserved.  Voters don't want cuts to service, the majority of them would rather pay a little more, and make sure those who are getting away with not paying their share due to the loopholes and tax incentives that favor passive income do their part. 

But conservatives would rather nickel and dime our children and see their society go to hell.

Marie, I noticed how you conveniently blamed the whole problem on selfish "TEA parter protesters". I think it is telling that you think that the solution to every problem is to increase taxes. Still, I find it curious that you have no problem with local public safety employees who are among the highest paid public servants in the nation, enjoying salaries well into six figures and early retirement at 90% pay. The state is broke an laying off teachers, and you really don't see the correlation between ongoing multi-billion dollar give-aways to politically connected public employee unions and the fiscal crisis we are facing? We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. As I've said repeatedly, democrats will slash programs for the elderly, children, the disabled, the homeless, the poor and the disadvantaged before they will touch six figure pensions benefits for powerful public employee unions. Yet you don't speak out against the injustice of laying off teachers and increasing taxes on people who are losing their jobs, healthcare, and homes, while at the same time preserving bloated pension plans for a select few. That is a reflection of your true value system.

I'm sort of wondering if "Bubba" read the same post I did.

I don't see where Marie said anything about TEA protesters being "selfish". Yes, there was a remark about "patting wallets".

The "selfish" comment is your opinion/statement added to a cut out quote from the actual column and then you disingenuously try to link the two.

It may be a matter of splitting hairs, but you are incorrect to assert the insertion of the "selfish" term.

The bottom line though is that you miss the real point of the commentary, as I understand it to be.

These cuts, whatever they may be, however necessary they might be...do have a human face, they do impact real lives, of the both the people in service to the public and those they serve.

I don't recall anyone telling me I have a 6-figure pension. It's the Republicans who want to slash programs and the well compensated prison guards who give equally to Republicans who don't want their pensions cut. And last I heard yeah we have a revenue problem. It's called economic decline.

Really nice little interactive feature in San Jose Mercury News article today about state spending:

http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_12579720?source=rss

Bottom line, spending relative to residents' income has been been stable over the last three decades and has dropped in recent years.

But we've upped prison spending 103 percent in the last 10 years!

Marie,
I would suggest to the laid off teacher she become a physical therapist. They have positions that give presentations to large and small groups. It's really an education position. It's a good six figure backup. It sounds like a very transferable skill set.

I am a young teacher leaving california. I am in texas looking for a teaching job right now. This state really cares about education, not like california. It's sad because I grew up in ventura county, and all I wanted to do is give back to my community.

Sigh.
Hope you land on your feet, too!
I'm so sorry.

Marie,

Thanks for this entry. Please keep on writing. You should ask The Star for a column in the print edition.

A few comments:

1. There are "faces", too, on all the former tax-paying people leaving California for other states - like Texas, for example, where they have created more jobs than all other 49 states combined, where both houses of the legislature and the governor's office are run by Republicans and where the state is solvent.

2. I, too, have spent "many years" going to graduations and ceremonies - putting up with crappy teachers who cannot ever be fired and whose seniority trumps the quality of the teacher you reference. I have also encountered the 'little North Koreas" which is the term given the liberal arts departments of most US colleges where political correctness trumps the famous "free speech" of the 60's.

3. I met a young white middle school teacher the other day who received a pink slip from her school in Oxnard. She put a second on her home to finish college, her husband just got laid off his job, and they are way upside down on their Oxnard home - it will be foreclosed - and she said reverse racism is rampant in the Oxnard schools. Where is the vaunted teachers' union in all of this ? Do they or any union care about her ?

4. What is the connection of the "tea parties' to this, Marie ? Your party has single-handedly trashed this state and everything in it. It doesn't have to be this way and hasn't always been this way.

5. The writer above from Texas has it figured out. California doesn't care about education, especially its teachers' unions.

If Republicans had their way, even more teachers would be losing their jobs now. The Tea Parties were a sickening celebration of the unemployment of the best, brightest and most dedicated among us. Shame on everyone who attended them.

Juan,

There are laws against racial discrimination in this state. Tell your friend to hire a lawyer. Is she the teacher you mentioned before that wore a Yes on 8 campaign button in class?

As far as indoctrination you have already admitted you supported a friend campaigning in an elementary school classroom in favor of Proposition 8.

California is in trouble for many reasons including a worldwide financial meltdown caused by factors outside our control.

The education field is only hurting in the public sector. In the private sector it's doing quite well. One of the only few that are.

Any proof for that claim?

Note that in Ventura one of our longtime private schools just closed due to lack of enrollment. Parents can't afford private tuition these days.

Yes I do Reader thank you for asking,

For-profit education companies are flush with cash. Most have no debt and capital expenditures generally account for less than 5% of revenues. Acquisitions are common, as are stock repurchases, which have averaged $1 billion annually in recent years.

Take DeVry for instance,
This fall, new student enrollment was up 20% vs. last year. Its stock has lifted 24% since mid-October. DeVry is a Forbes Platinum 400 company.

In September DeVry spent $290 million to buy U.S. Education, a California company specializing in health care education.

Reader - the teacher I discussed earlier was a wonderful young Hispanic Republican who taught in Santa Paula.

The one in Oxnard should not have to hire a lawyer - that's the point - her "union" should do that. The law against racial discrimination in this state is certainly not evident to the many arrogant anti-white young Hispanic MeCHa males and females in Oxnard. They do a disservice to their culture and history. They are an example of what the Ford Foundation's liberal support has done to distort their world view via MeCha studies.

DeVry relies on students who take out government loans and who could otherwise not afford the place.

Reader - the "worldwide meltdown" is directly attributable to the Democrat Party - don't ask me - ask the Wall Street Journal - one of the few papers making money these days - because they print the truth.

The economic meltdown is mostly attributable to Wall Street greed, and many other things, not confined to politics.

Your race-baiting comments are once again repugnant.

Juan,

Did I miss when the "Democrat" Party ( Just like McCarthy of you to use that title...) forced Bush to invade Iraq without a plan on how to run the place afterwards? Which "Democrat" General forced him to not send in enough troops in the start?

When did the "Democrat Party" force him to pass an unfunded Medicare prescription drug plan that didn't allow us to buy in bulk as a government or to import drugs from Canada?

Which member of the "Democrat Party" forced Bush to sign the bailouts of the banks?

He seems to be forced to do all sorts of things by his opponents.

Many of the senior teachers don't like all the testing and paperwork of today's public schools system. Many of them are retiring early and it will be difficult to replace them.

Juandeveras,

News Corporation paid more than $5 billion for an asset that generated about $100 million in operating income last year. News Corporation’s stock price has fallen by two-thirds in the last year. They couldn't even beat Time Warner.

There is a structural imbalance between revenues and spending that needs to be addressed before you can fix the problem of education funding. Government revenues soared due to bubble markets that included the dot com boom and then the housing bubble. State and local governments ramped up spending are awarded lavish pay raises and benefit increases to politically connected public employee unions to a level that was unsustainable, even during the good times.

Want proof? I noticed that Marie conveniently ignored the recent Ventura County Grand Jury report that documents how pension contributions for the Ventura County government have increased by 327 percent in just the past decade and are projected to grow another 20-25 percent each year for the next several years (see link). To put that into dollars, our county government now spends $140 million per year just to support pension benefits for county workers. That is an increase from about $42 million per year ten years ago. Which means that an extra $100 million per year of local taxpayer money is now shoveled into public employee pension plans. But wait! If you look at the projections these costs are expected to double again by 2012. That means that within three years we will have to divert an additional $150 million per year from other programs just to cover rising pension costs because of overly generous pension plans that have been increased dramatically over the past decade.

Of course I expect the liberals on this blog to continue to ignore these exploding costs and try to somehow blame the whole problem on a lack of tax revenues. But facts are stubborn things. Marie keeps defending early retirement with six figure pensions for local public safety employees, but then wonders where all the money went that used to be available for libraries, homeless shelters, senior programs, etc. Gosh, it must be the fault of all those tea party demonstrators who won't pay their "fair share".

Even if the economy recovers it will not address the fundamental structural imbalance. There is a lag effect in property tax revenues, which means that they will continue to fall over the next few years. Combine that with massive investment losses by pension funds and you will discover that the true cost of these lavish pension benefits is far higher than advertised. If you think that the current budget situation is bad you haven't seen anything yet. This is just the warm up, and you won't be able to tax your way out of this problem.

This week we quietly passed a landmark date in California history. It was the ten year anniversary of the single event the set off the chain of events that has led this state to fiscal disaster. On June 16, 1999 Governor Gray Davis signed into law SB400, a law that provided dramatic retroactive pension increases for 800,000 state government employees and retirees. This included cops, firefighters, prison guards, teachers, and even clerks. Some groups benefited more than others, but all enjoyed generous increases. It also started a competitive domino effect since local cities and counties were pressured to respond in kind. As a result, nearly all public safety employees throughout the state can now retire at the age of 50 at up to 90% pay. But it also resulted in subtle changes that can have a big impact, like having pensions based on just the final 12 months of pay instead of the final three years. This makes it much easier for many public employees to engage in "pension spiking".

And we wonder why the state is broke. When younger teachers are being issued pink slips ask yourself how many of them have to be thrown under the bus in order to fund the pension increases that were given to older teachers.

Bubba, in past comments I have:
1. Corrected misinformation put out by you.
2. Shared local governments' logic behind compensation issues.

And on my "conveniently ignoring" a story that the Star covers, I could name hundreds of other things I have not written about, too. My time to write this blog is very limited.

Dr. Who ?

"Your race-baiting comments.....yadayada..."

For those experiencing reverse racism in the schools of Oxnard is the "repugnant" issue - you live in a P.C. bubble.

Reader

The Democrat Party was given that appellation by reporters Candy Crowley, Anderson Cooper among other Democrat reporters. Hertzberg, editor of the "New Yorker" said is takes away from the Democrats their desire to be something they do not preach - Democratic values. It was used all the way back to the Harding era - by Newt, Dole and McCarthy - whose general counsel was Bobby Kennedy . Frank Luntz and Newt tested it in 2001 and those who hate it the most are extreme leftie partisans like yourself, Democrat.

Student -

News Corp. is worth $52 billion worldwide as of 3/09 with annual revenues of $31 billion. The WSJ has grown 12% in paid subscriptions since Rupert took over. Amen, brother. 40% of Americans are Conservative - 20% are libs and the rest are ?

I started a business venture helping schools consolidate. I landed my first gig in Sacramento. I basically take desks, chairs and classroom supplies to the schools staying open to help absorb the old school’s students. Every classroom at the school closing had notes to the teacher on the chalkboards. It kind of hit home when I saw it. It’s difficult to believe this is the best way to make us better.

I am going to use the money I raise to remove our current governor from office. I am taking a chance of not getting paid I guess but I think it's a risk that must be taken to succeed in creating positive change.

Marie I like your new blog format.