Plunder!: How Public Employee Unions Are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation - Book TV

Don’t miss this talk about government unions.  The author is from California.  Note how many things sound familiar: from issuing edicts on Friday afternoon and voting then into law on Tuesday night to how we are getting less and less government “services” for more and more taxes we pay.  And how the union’s plan is to simply keep raising taxes – forever.   From the website:

Steven Greenhut takes a critical look at government workers and the unions that represent them.  Mr. Greenhut argues that government employees, who receive salaries, benefits, and a level of job security that far outpace workers in the private sector, have become a huge drain on state and federal coffers.  He spoke at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Orange, California. 

Economics - Plunder!: How Public Employee Unions Are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation - Book TV

Click on the “watch” link on the right side of the page to view the video of the presentation.  It’s about an hour.

Pointless bickering tests endurance

Amid the heat and mental pressure of a council chamber packed with angry policemen, a woman fainted, briefly causing a break in the pointless, childish, hyperbolic emotional “debate” over pay adjustments for city workers.

I guess technically this was before the pointless debate, as the meeting was still an agenda item at the time, a plan to upgrade the public works garage.  This presentation was so searing-ly boring that it’s a wonder someone doesn’t drop every meeting. 

(The young woman had, it appeared, simply fainted and walked out with assistance.  It was very warm in there, and it was packed with people.)

Below, Manteca citizen does a pretty respectable Norma Rae

A labyrinth of government panhandlers

Ok, they used the term “public-sector” as a euphemism for “government.”  But this reminded me of this week’s meeting where the firemen asked for permission to charge you for their services.

The term “panhandlers” surprises me because this isn’t coming from a manifesto from a mimeograph machine in the Montana back woods, but rather, the New York Times.

States, Counties and Towns Using Fees to Fix Budget Problems - NYTimes.com

Manteca Fire to charge a fee?

This week the Manteca Fire Department is proposing they be permitted to charge (actually, bill) people from “out of town” who get in car accidents in Manteca!

The proposal is riddled with problems:

1. The department notes that California law permits charges for certain services but it’s a bit more nuanced. The accident has to be caused by negligence. And while I’m sure most accidents are caused by someone’s negligence it’s often hard to figure out who. Now the fire department claims to have some method of determining fault?

2. There’s no provision in the law for provincial discrimination. In other words, there’s nothing that lets them charge one guy and not charge another guy depending on where they live.

The rationale they glibly suggest is that people in Manteca already pay taxes for the fire services and presumably “outsiders” don’t. But that is not so. Actually, anyone who stays at a hotel, fills up with gasoline or stops for a meal in a restaurant or buys a stick of gum in Manteca pays some taxes.

Is that enough to pay for fire services? Probably. Consider the entire public safety budget, and consider how long it takes a car to pass through Manteca’s jurisdiction on Hwy 99 or 120. Something like 90 seconds to 180 seconds. And when you figure it all out and divide the public safety budget by the number of minutes in a year, it comes to about a dollar a day, or a fraction of a penny for a passing through. If someone stays at a hotel, they pay about $10 in tax, enough for more than a week of public safety. I don’t want to get bogged down in numbers too much; but it’s obvious that many visitors do pay enough in Manteca taxes. And maybe everyone does.

Because, one could argue that for the small amount of time one passing through Manteca uses, (a minute or two of fire and police protection) they have already paid that in taxes paid to California and to the federal government. Based on my back of the envelope calculation, if Manteca takes in $1.8 million in federal or state aid or grants, then everyone in the United States has paid enough to the City of Manteca to cover the cost of providing life saving services for those who pass through.

3. What kind of a public relations disaster this would be! The city is trying hard to promote itself and encourage people to visit. How will it help our reputation once it gets known if some crazy Manteca driver causes an accident not only might you be hurt but the city will send you a bill! Our new slogan will have to be “Come to Manteca so we can bill you if we have to save your sorry ass.”

4. Maybe we should only charge people who reside in a city that would charge us if we were in their city and got in an accident! Fortunately, there are few cities that do this. Most cities save the lives of Manteca residents when they are visiting or passing through. Our way of thanking them for that is by charging their residents?

5. The charges are outrageous and arbitrary. Anything from about $500 to go out to the scene of the accident and do nothing, to over $2000 to essentially do nothing but watch a helicopter land and med-evac someone. Granted there’s an in-between charge of about $1800 if they have to use the "jaws of life” to pry open a door to get you out of a wreck. Now I have one more thing to worry about if I’m trapped in a wrecked car; if I’m still conscious I’ll be thinking “what is that thing costing me?… Maybe I can just crawl out the back window, just give me a boost….”

6. I saved the best for last. This company they are thinking of hiring brags on their web site how they collect at such a high rate, much more than anyone else. How do they do it? They won’t say. It’s a secret method, we’re just supposed to authorize that.

God only knows what they do! Do they call up and demand money? Do they threaten? Do they “forget” to mention that you have a right to contest the charge? Do they say they will sue? (They aren’t authorized to bring lawsuits.) Do they send out the goon squad who remarks what a shame it would be if your kneecaps were to “get in an accident like your car?” Who knows!

But one thing we do know. The City Council should not authorize a third party to do some secret thing they won’t tell us. Do I need to say it again? A public relations nightmare!

BLD isn’t a drag on budget??????????????

Manteca Bulletin's editor asserts Big League Dreams “pays” the city $380,000 a year! Saves $500,000 in “maintenance.” And the money given to BLD, about $31,000,000, came from a magical pre-existing “pool of money” that’s “not being paid back.” (Yet in the next sentence he says all RDA funds are “borrowed.”)

I want to hear more about this magical pool filled with money that has been discovered in Manteca. I’d like to go for a swim. Especially if it’s money you don’t have to pay back.

How can the city officials make such an outlandish claim, you ask? What they mean is that there’s not a budget line item called “pay back the loan for BLD.” Therefore, that particular money isn’t actually being paid back out of some fund that they decide “counts.” But make no mistake, when you borrow $31 million, it has to be paid back. That “paying back” may occur at some stage and under some convoluted structure before the money reaches the city general fund, but it still costs just as much no matter what word games are used to snow the council and the public.

By the way, about how much is this loan pay back every year? Just estimating with a financial calculator and the current bond rates, the loan payments (debt service) for BLD is somewhere in the range of $1.7 to $1.9 million each year.

The city officials, with the help of the Bulletin, hope you’ll be bamboozled with large numbers. So let me break it down for you:

Let's say you open a pizza shop. You rent the store front and pay employees. The rent and employees costs $1,900 a month. You sell $380 worth of pizzas. Have you made money? Well, you could say you took in $380 or use some other evasive language. But, in fact, you would be losing money, you wouldn’t even be able to pay the rent with the amount of pizzas you sold.

The editor would have us believe that only “critics” of the project count the loan payment, and proponents of the project count the “income.” As if the numbers depend on your feelings. The BLD costs $1,900,000 a year and “brings in” $380,000. Those numbers add up to a loss of over $1.5 million each year and it doesn’t matter if you “like” the BLD or if you’re a “critic.”

I haven’t even gotten to the crazy claim that it saves the city $500K in “maintenance.” First of all, look at how much BLD budgets each year for maintenance. The last time I saw their budget, which was a few years ago, it was just a little over $100K. That’s like your boss asks you how much you spent on gas to go on a business trip, you spent $100 but you tell the boss you spent $500.

But more importantly, the “savings” isn’t a savings at all. Building the thing incurred the cost of maintenance (i.e., if they didn’t build it there wouldn’t be any maintenance costs!). In addition, the logic is wrong, it’s simply a mental construct….

I would explain more but I have to go out and mow the lawn. In fact, I’m saving the city $100/month by mowing my lawn. After all, that’s what it would cost the city to mow my lawn, so I’m “saving” the city that money. hehehe

BLD isn’t a drag on budget

Stupid in Manteca

This is from a few years ago. You might want to watch this before the next school board meeting.

School district pay chart

(Courtesy Manteca-Lathrop Sun-Post, 6 Feb 2009, pgs 12-15)

The chart is readable if you click on the image to show it full resolution.

This chart is distributed on a need-to-know basis*.

*Those who have a desire to remain ignorant of how your government works do not have a "need to know."

Handy city pay chart

Here's a handy email-able version of the city pay chart for those who may have missed it.

(courtesy of the Manteca-Lathrop Sun-Post, 30 Jan 2009, pgs 12-13)

The chart is readable if you click on the image to show it full resolution.

Honk for communism!

They called it an "informational picket." Members of the teachers' union were out there protesting "the budget cuts." Or what they say are "budget cuts." By the way, how many times in your life have you heard the phrase "budget cuts?" Isn't there always a budget being "cut?" And yet government never seems to spend less or collect less in taxes. For once, I'd like to see some savings from these so called "budget cuts."

Usually, when some group protests the "budget cuts" it means "we want more money." It just sounds better if they are protesting the cuts rather than being out there yelling at passing motorists "You should suffer! You should sacrifice! But not us!" Thank you for that horn of approval, now pull out your wallet. Thank you.



About halfway through the video, check out the guy on the motorcycle. Right after this picture, a car pulled out onto the street right in front of him....