THE END OF NEVER

The state of California is one of the few states left that is totally dominated by the Democratic Party.  Many Republicans have given up and assumed that this will never change.  They are wrong.  This is going to change sooner than you think.  The sad fact is that gross mismanagement by Democrats, with assistance from too many Republicans has set up a perfect financial storm that is going to have a devastating impact on California. Those of us who live here know that the entire state government is dominated by the public sector unions.  All those public sector employees are dreaming of a lovely retirement with free medical for life.  The problem is that Democrats have been writing checks they can’t possibly cash.  The following article explains:

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/03/30/golden-state-pension-deficit-1-2-trillion/

Note this is over a year old.  That means the problem is even worse.

This report is from the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. California is underfunded by about $1.2 trillion (yes trillion) necessary to fund the retirement tab for state and local employees.  Since the total revenue for the state is about $123 billion per year, this means there is zero chance the state can pay these benefits.  Even if they took every dime the state collects for the next 10 years, it would not be enough to cover the deficit.  They can’t even hope to pay the deficit they admit is there, let alone the actual deficit revealed in this report.  What could make this worse?  Easy!  Imagine these vital funds managed by political appointees, notoriously corrupt, with a mandate to invest in poor performing global warming ventures.  In other words, just when the state desperately needs to be really smart about investing the limited assets available to deal with this, we have the worst possible people in charge.  Does anyone really think this is going to work?

By the way, even without this unfunded deficit, the state is already running out of money.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/18/1-9b-accounting-error-adds-to-california-deficit-projection.html

Democrats have been ignoring this storm for decades. Every year the decision is made to kick the can a little farther down the road.  California, unlike the United States Government, cannot ignore the problem by just printing money.  This means sooner, rather than later, the California budget is going to look a lot like Puerto-Rico or Greece and they are going to come to Washington, D.C. with hat in hand begging for a bail out.  Don’t expect President Donald Trump or the Republican congress to feel all that warm and fuzzy about this. How do you think the rest of the country is going to feel about bailing out California so that public sector employees can have their luxury retirement?

The inevitable result is going to be massive cuts to retirement benefits promised to public sector employees, accompanied by massive tax increases on everyone else. This is not going to play well in Peoria or anyplace else.  The blame for this is going to fall primarily on Democrats because the price for absolute power is absolute blame.  Margaret Thatcher once said that liberalism always fails because eventually they run out of other people’s money.  That will happen in California faster than you can blink.

The end of never is just around the corner.

TDM

2 thoughts on “THE END OF NEVER

    • I wish I was wrong about this, because it is going to hurt a lot of people. Unfortunately, it is all too true. It is only a matter of time.

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