Brown Pushes Pension Reform

Governor Brown: is that you?

Are you really leading the charge for pension reform in Sacramento?

I don't know whether to laugh or refuse to pay my taxes.

Of course, I choose to laugh. I laugh for joy, in that a Democratic governor in a Democratic state is leading the charge to tackle these outrageous entitlements

Current California state workers can retire at 55, the age when most people are rethinking their lives and pursuing new careers. This is ridiculous.

Public employees roll over sick days and raise their pensions. This is laughable.

The same state workers, whose primary mandate is to ensure that the basic machinery of government keeps running, spike their pensions with over-time pay in the last two to three years of employment. This is ludicrous.

Warren Furutani, state assemblyman from Gardena and current candidate for LA City Council, is attacking Brown's plan because the governor wants to curb all pensions. Furutani wants to target the six-figure pension holders. The assemblyman argues that teachers, police officers, and firefighters should not be "punished".
Unfortunately, a number of these civil servants are already slated to collected a six figure salary (see El Segundo, Bell, Los Angeles, etc.
), and it is the balloon affect of retiring baby boomers collecting their pensions which is certain to bankrupt the gilded Golden State.

Furutani furtively whines, "There is no one big solution" to the pension problems plaguing the state.

On the contrary, state legislators like Furutani can forgo their pensions, investing some of their "hard-earned" salaries in responsible CD's or in 401(k)'s. For all their bickering and politicking, the state of California, whose fiscal house they are sworn to keep in order, is suffering terrible, facing a multi-billion dollar debt drowning future generations in unsustainable obligations.

Governor Brown has done the same -- that is the "due" every "old geezer" politician owes the California taxpayer.