From 1999 through 2002, I was the Vice Chair of the Senate Public Employment and Retirement Committee. During that time, a number of bills presented to the committee increased pension and retirement benefits for state and local government employees. Every single one of these bills were passed and signed by Governor Davis.

At the hearing on each of these bills, the lobbyists for the government employee unions showed up and begged the committee members to vote for the bill. In addition, the representative for the California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) told the committee that the retirement system could afford the increases because it had a $60 billion surplus. The surplus was so big that the state did not have to pay any money to the CalPERS fund, and CalPERS told us we would never have to pay into the retirement system ever again, even with the benefit increases. Of course, the government employee unions control the CalPERS board. The state was experiencing record budget surpluses, so everyone thought that the good times would last forever.

I kept trying to explain to my legislative colleagues that we were being foolish. No one can increase benefits without some cost. At some point, I said, these pension chickens were going to come home to roost in our budget. My colleagues called me Chicken Little telling me “the sky is not falling.” They said the pension was sound and the budget could absorb the cost.

Oops.

The chickens have come home to roost. The City of San Diego is going bankrupt from generous pension benefits. Orange County is talking seriously about filing bankruptcy again to get out from underneath their pension requirements. The state’s contribution to CalPERS is estimated to be $3.5 billion this year, and even higher next year. This is from nothing in 1999.

And this week, the Legislative Analyst’s Office released a report that the cost of retiree health benefits will be “in the range of $40 billion to $70 billion, and perhaps more.” The report identifies two reasons for this increased cost; (a) increased health care costs; and (b) legislatively mandated increased health benefits.

Health care costs have increased significantly in the last six years for one reason: legislatively mandated minimum requirements for health care. From 1999 to 2000, the Legislature passed over 30 different mandates on health insurers, and as a result, costs increased over 40%.

In addition, the Government Standards Accounting Board (GASB) passed new rules on how to account for these increases. GASB statement 45 (GASB 45) increases the information the governments must report to properly assess their liabilities. No longer can the government employee unions, and their management allies, cook the books to understate the liabilities. Once all these liabilities are reported, the government agency must pay for all of the costs of those liabilities.

To the state of California, GASB 45 would require $6 billion in payments, compared to $1 billion today. This is in addition to the state’s already $2-3 billion increase in pension costs, and the existing $5 billion structural deficit, the state is on the brink of a crisis.

I like to use humor to shed light on the oddities of politics and government. Unfortunately, this article is not very funny. We are literally facing a crisis of epic proportions brought on by this Legislature’s slavish devotion to the demands of the government employee unions. These gluttons are literally the fox guarding the chickens, and to mix metaphors, the chickens have now come home to roost. When this system collapses, people will wonder how this happened. Now you know that it is coming, and what caused it.

Assemblyman Haynes’ office can be reached at
(951) 699-1113 in Temecula, California
or in the Capitol in Sacramento at (916) 319-2066

I recently attended the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC and was somewhat surprised at the content of the agenda. As usual, the focus was on Conservative issues with special emphasis on tax cuts. That is a major difference between Conservatives and Liberals. Conservatives want fewer taxes and less government while the Liberals think high taxes and more government programs are the proper way to run a country.

What was surprising this year is that many of the speakers and panelists were actually critical of the Republican Congress and Administration. Traditionally, this has been a forum for a Republican pep rally, but the tone has changed as the participants condemned the runaway and irresponsible spending by the party in power.

There were no Democrats to blame for the deficit and waste of taxpayer funds. While panelists and speakers were pleading to make the tax cuts permanent, many had to admit that it couldn’t be maintained unless some sort of intelligence miracle infused its way onto Capitol Hill and the greed and pork spending were replaced with common sense.

Ann Coulter spoke with her usual rancor for liberals and gave several hard shots at the Muslim terrorists. A Muslim member of the audience asked her to stop painting all Muslims with the tar brush and said that only a relatively few Muslims were responsible for the attacks.

Ann quipped back. “OK. I cracked a few jokes. Muslims murdered more than three thousand people in the US. We’re even.” She showed absolutely no remorse for her comments. Good thing she isn’t a cartoonist.

The exhibit hall had a couple of unlikely participants. Among the right-to-life people, the tax cut organizations and educational institutions were the ACLU and a group trying to convince people that the government should legalize marijuana. It didn’t seem that these groups got a lot of support or encouragement.

I got into a discussion with the person who sat behind the ACLU booth and we discussed the errors of the organization when it came to Second Amendment issues. She could not convince me that the Second Amendment is a collective right and the other rights are individual. Her arguments were nothing more than bad opinion. Some of her facts were wrong, too. I think I motivated her to engage in more research on Second Amendment issues.

Wayne LaPierre received a standing ovation when he reminded the audience that our Second Amendment rights were in jeopardy and we need laws to protect those rights instead of the liberal politicians creating new ideas to strip freedom from Americans. He talked about the debacle in New Orleans where law enforcement officers and the military confiscated firearms from honest citizens and left them to the mercy of the looters and burglars. It was a powerful reminder that freedom isn’t free and requires an ongoing fight to maintain.

One fine reference from (would you believe a conservative publication in DC?) the Washington Times is a booklet called “Capital Contacts” that has a lot of good information about the power people and politicians in Washington, DC. It is a wonderful resource for those who wish to contact various legislators, agencies and bureaucracies. The price is $15 and it can be ordered from TWTNWE, 3600 New York Avenue NE, Washington, DC 20002. A fine investment for activists. The website is washingtontimes. com.

To digress a bit from politics, I have a request from readers. I saw the movie Good Night And Good Luck. It was a late-night broadcaster’s sign-off statement. A more recent anchor man ended his program with “And that’s the way it is.” A local political writer ended his column with “Go, and sin no more.” I would like to use a sign-off slogan and am asking for input. Perhaps something like “And that’s the way I see it.” I am open to suggestions from interested readers. All submissions will be given serious consideration. Should someone come up with a winner, I will buy lunch at a good restaurant for that person.

In the movie Groundhog Day Bill Murray’s character wakes up to the same refrain from the song “I got you, babe” every morning, and that is how he knows he is stuck in the same place on the same day, day after day, throughout the movie.

I don’t think I am stuck in that movie, but I keep hearing the same refrain day after day, week after week, year after year, from the Democrats in Sacramento. This last week was no exception.

In 1998, then Governor Pete Wilson proposed a $58.6 billion general fund budget. Between 1999 and 2001, the state experienced record surpluses, and then Governor Gray Davis spent all of those surpluses and then some, increasing spending $20 billion in those two short years. It took Pete Wilson 8 years to increase spending by $17 billion. But it only took Gray Davis two years to increase it by $20 billion. From the day Pete Wilson took office to the day he left, the Democrats in the Legislature demanded tax increases, whether there were deficits or surpluses. From the day Gray Davis took office, Democrats demanded tax increases, whether the state faced a surplus or a deficit. The record increase in spending in the early Davis years eventually led to his recall, which resulted from the record deficits he and the Legislative Democrats created between 1999 and 2001.

When Governor Schwarzenegger took office following the recall, the Democrats were hopeful. They woke up to “I got you babe” and, thinking they were back with Gray Davis again, asked for tax increases again. Schwarzenegger got spending under control in his first budget, proposing a $76.1 billion budget, only a $100 million increase in spending over the year before, which was the smallest increase in government spending in recent memory. Eventually, the Legislature passed a $76.8 billion budget, and, once again, the Democrats called for a tax increase.

This year, the Governor proposed a $98 billion budget, a $22 billion spending increase, once again, in two short years. When I woke up on January 10, the day the Governor proposed his budget, I could have sworn I heard “I got you babe” again. A Governor proposing record spending increases, in fact, spending $5 billion more than the state believes it will take in, and the Democrats saying it is not enough, and that they need more taxes.

Well, here is the refrain. With term limits, I think I can honestly say that some of these Legislators are young, and they don’t understand the repercussions of their decisions, but they’ll find out when they grow. This budget is going to collapse, babe. In one, maybe two, maybe three years, this budget will be $20 – $30 billion out of balance.

Until that time, however, the state is once again experiencing enormous increases in revenue, and the Governor and the Legislature are spending those revenues as if there was an unending supply of money, and the Democrats are still calling for tax increases, because, despite the record revenues, they still don’t have enough money. In a press conference last week, the Democrat leaders, Speaker Fabian Nunez and President Pro Tem Don Perata keep complaining that the Governor’s budget did not reflect their priorities, and that they were going to increase spending. When the press noted that the expenditures in the budget were already $4 billion above projected revenue, the reporters rightfully asked if the Democrats were going to ask for new taxes to cover the increased spending. Nunez and Perata dodged the question, but made it clear that tax increases would probably be necessary.

So, like Bill Murray, I turned over and smashed the clock, so I wouldn’t have to hear that stupid song again. Unfortunately, like Bill Murray, it was still the same day, same tune, just different people.

Assemblyman Haynes’ office can be reached at
(951) 699-1113 in Temecula, California
or in the Capitol in Sacramento at (916) 319-2066

One of the major concerns in government is the high cost of medical care. This columnist had a few suggestions in past writings, and has developed a plan that is based on common sense and logic. For those two reasons alone, this idea probably won’t be given serious consideration in Washington, DC and Albany.

It seems almost everyone complains about how Medicare and Medicaid are breaking federal, state and local budgets. The costs keep increasing and many feel that not enough people are covered by health insurance. That is a hard argument to rebut. In fact, it is a fact. The major problem is that most health insurance policies are too expensive for many people to afford.

The obvious answer is that Medicaid doesn’t cover enough people and misses those who are making too much money to be eligible. Their incomes are not enough to pay premiums. The government already has a precedent to aid these people. Since food stamps have allowed low income people to be able to put decent food on the table, and the HEAP program has helped numerous people to keep from freezing to death in winter, the government should scrap both Medicare and Medicaid and try a new program.

The big argument in favor of scrapping both programs is that they are too expensive, and poorly managed while not covering enough people. This is why the MAIP program (Medical Assistance Insurance Program) could be a logical solution.

Since Medicaid costs the New York taxpayer more than eight thousand dollars per recipient, and a good health insurance program costs about six or seven thousand dollars for an individual, a small fortune could be saved every year by buying a private policy for those in need.

Some people could perhaps afford to pay a couple of thousand out of their earnings and further reduce the taxpayer contribution. Family plans are cheaper per person than individual policies and the taxpayer would be paying less on a per capita basis with the aid plan. The potential savings are significant.

The next area of savings is to reduce the bureaucracy administrating the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Cuts would be made at the federal, state and local levels. With the shifting of responsibility to private industry, the displaced workers would be picked up by the insurance companies to handle the increased workload.

Private industry handles paperwork and administration much better than bureaucrats in government. Costs are reduced and by reducing the number of government employees, the taxpayers save on pensions paid to people no longer working.

Insurance companies pay for the new employee benefits and the 401(k) plans. These costs are becoming more of a drain on municipal budgets than ever before. Additionally, the costs are more easily stabilized by companies who rely on premiums for revenue. If necessary, the insurance companies could be regulated similarly to utility companies.

For those who are burdened by paying for their own health insurance, the government should make the premiums tax deductible from the first dollar. If a person pays six thousand dollars a year, that amount should be as deductible as home taxes on the tax return. That would be a needed break for the taxpayer who is now suffering from paying outrageous costs for energy.

The next part of the plan is to make the premiums for nursing home insurance tax deductible, even for children who pay the premiums for their parents. With that in place, there would not have to be the shifting of resources by the elderly to avoid their savings being eaten by nursing home costs. The nursing homes benefit, the family benefits and the taxpayers benefit.

If the readers of this column believe this is a logical approach to the problem, may we suggest that they email this to their congressman, senator, state senator and assemblyman and urge them to support a bill to relieve the overburdened New York (and other) taxpayers. Politicians react better to heat and if they don’t feel it from their constituents, they seldom see the light.

Remember the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day? One of my favorite scenes is set in the bowling alley, with Bill Murray’s character, Phil Connors, talking to a drunk:

Phil: What would you do if you were stuck in one place, and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered.

Drunk: That sums it up for me.

Think about it. Isn’t that California, particularly its Legislature? The Democrats have been in charge of the Legislature for all but 4 years since 1958, and it seems like California is just like Phil Connor. I just hope that I am not the drunk, because Phil’s comment pretty much sums up the California Legislature for me.

This last week, I was in the Assembly, just like I was in January, 1994. In 1994, I was tangentially involved in trying to qualify the three strikes law, the law that would put repeat serious or violent felons in prison for the rest of their life if they committed one more felony of any type. If you remember, in 1993, when the initiative for three strikes started, California’s crime rate had been soaring for years, while every attempt to pass “tough on crime” laws died in the Assembly Public Safety Committee. In those days, three left-wing bay area Democrat liberals killed every single law intended to protect the people of the state of California from the worst in our state. Attempts to increase prison sentences died time after time after time, while the majority party continued to insist that they were not soft on crime.

Then Polly Klaas was killed, and something snapped in the people of the state of California. They had had enough, and they passed the three strikes law by initiative, while the lefties continued to insist that enforcement would be too expensive, prisons would become overcrowded, and the law would have no effect on the crime rate.

In the two years following the passage of Three Strikes, however, the crime rate dropped, and prison population did not grow. Violent felons in this state were looking for ways to get out of California so they wouldn’t spend the rest of their life in jail. When the crime rate dropped, Californians forgot just how bad crime had been before three strikes.

Zoom forward to today. Jessica’s law is a law intended to punish the worst of this state’s child molesters by putting them in jail for the rest of their lives. Now, just like Phil Connors in Groundhog Day, California is stuck in the 1990’s rhetoric of the left. Jessica’s law won’t work: it is too expensive; it won’t stop child molesters; it won’t treat them; and it will invade their civil liberties. Just like three strikes, the lefties tried to pass a watered down version of Jessica’s law to avoid the label of being soft on crime.

They are wrong again, and the people of this state know it. A lifetime tracking method for child molesters is necessary to protect our children. Keeping them away from our schools is necessary. Putting them in jail from 25 years to life is necessary. Punishing those who possess even one piece of child pornography to stop the sexual exploitation of our children is necessary. Jessica’s law, like three strikes, was killed in the Assembly Public Safety Committee, and, like three strikes, it will have to go before the voters to become law.

It is Groundhog Day, and it seems that nothing that the people do matters. When will we ever learn? We can’t do everything by initiative, but as long as people keep electing these lefties, our children and our communities will be at risk, over and over and over again.

Assemblyman Haynes’ office can be reached at
(951) 699-1113 in Temecula, California
or in the Capitol in Sacramento at (916) 319-2066