Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Why the Republicans should be scared.



We see you all as the credit card carrying spenders of Bell California.

So what is the Tea Party -- the group that will help the Republicans take Congress, or the one that will accidentally help the Democrats keep it?

It's really amusing that the GOP is as confused as ever, as to why their candidates keep loosing. It is simple really. When you said you were the party of fiscal responsibility - that meant something to us.

I hear a chorus of Dems saying where were you when HitlerBush was spending us into the ground. Which is a fair question. It is.

At the time I didn't have a problem with the money Bush was spending. Because, I didn't know how much public officials were making. As a matter of a fact, public unions sued to block this information in 2003. When a lawsuit was filed to have this information disclosed.

From the Morgan Hill Times.

"The Contra Costa Times initiated the court battle for salaries after a 2003 ruling in San Mateo County that gave cities an excuse to withhold salary information from the public. In San Mateo County, Superior Court Judge Rosemary Pfeiffer denied an attempt by the Palo Alto Daily News to obtain salaries from the cities of Atherton, Belmont, Burlingame, San Carlos and San Mateo. The newspaper had previously published the names and salaries of Palo Alto and Menlo Park employees, and wanted to do the same for additional cities.

But unions representing public employees caught wind of the newspaper's request, and eventually filed a lawsuit to prevent the information from going public."


The lawsuit was finally settled at the end of 2007. It still took cities more than two years to release the information.

From Inside Bay Area 12/09/09.

"More than two years after state Supreme Court Justice Ronald George authored a 7-0 ruling stating that the salaries of all government employees are public record, some local governments still refuse to quickly release data. The city of Alameda took more than two months to release information on all of its 2008 employees and would not perform calculations to make the data easier for the public to understand. Albany refused to make similar calculations on overtime pay and bonuses."

As late as March 2008 state workers were protesting the court ruling saying they were concerned about safety and privacy.

From Govtech.

"Susan, a CalTrans manager, says she doesn't remember signing away her privacy when she became a state worker. I was sickened when I saw what was on there," she said. "I felt like I can be tracked down by people I worked with and I feel like I'm vulnerable."

She was right. Just not in the way she thought. In 2008, none of us would know how tired the taxpayer would become. For obvious good reason.

Some people say Chief Justice Ronald M. George's legacy will have been the act that temporarily gave gay couples the right to marry. Here. Not to diminish their plight - but, his larger legacy will have been the one that perhaps turned back the hand of out of control government. A government that affects every single person in this State.

Would things have been different if we'd known five years ago that the mayor of a small town was making 4 times what the Chief Justice himself was making? Or that a small town called Bell was charging property taxes at a higher rate then the residents of Beverly Hills. An increase of 50% in three years! For a constituent that on average only makes 40 grand a year? Here with video.

I don't know.

I got the impression that when I started blogging about BMW driving firefighters in early 2009 people thought I was sort of an asshole. So maybe nothing would have been different at all.

So, when the spineless Republicans go against their core values of cutting taxes and spending - both of which would have helped the residents of Bell California - we want to vote them out just as much as Democrats.

2 comments:

  1. You make good points.

    I was wrong about your firefighters posts. I should have admitted it back in 2009.

    I'm glad I keep coming back to read your latest posts.

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  2. Wow. I'm pretty stunned.

    It takes a lot of guts to say that. I'm glad you keep coming back too. I'd noticed someone from your area had been lurking for a couple of months now.

    I sort of like it when people don't agree with me anyway. It makes me feel like they are more real.

    Not that I like to fight. It isn't the same - but respectful debate is healthy. And, interesting.

    ReplyDelete