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This seems like a purposely obtuse hit on California by someone with a political axe to grind. Before the pandemic and global recession which has blown up State

This seems like a purposely obtuse hit on California by someone with a political axe to grind. Before the pandemic and global recession which has blown up State and Federal budgets everywhere, California was running a huge budget surplus and saving up billions of dollars in a rainy-day fund. Deeply red Georgia is also facing a major budget shortfall but you don't see article like this from right-wing commentors lamenting the series of tax cuts passed in recent years.

erichocean 6y ago
Pre-COVID, California was a model of fiscal responsibility.
- surfmike 6y ago
  Long term we got pension issues, but yes in fact, our previous governor was great at cutting back spending and was very fiscally responsible. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/dec/18/jerry-brown/does-california-have-budget-surplus-nearly-30-bill/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/dec/18/jerry-brow...
- adt2bt 6y ago
  Not sure if facetious, but this appears generally true on the face of it. They had a $21B surplus last year, and COVID has decimated state tax incomes across the board. Post-COVID, it should be expected that they'll be just fine. I agree with GP that this just feels like a hit piece.
  - stmfreak 6y ago
    How do you declare a $21B surplus while carrying a $1T unfounded pension liability?
pauldickwin 6y ago
And is this rainy-day fund working? I am seeing that the human feces pickup-patrol in SF is costing taxpayers up to $184k each and SF is becoming an even worse homeless-friendly dump with California's extreme liberal policies.
- fragsworth 6y ago
  Homeless people don't aggregate in cities like SF because they have liberal policies. They aggregate in cities like SF because they are dense. Cities also tend to be liberal, but correlation != causation.
  - omgwtfbyobbq 6y ago
    And have hospitable climates, which is why there are a lot people there in general.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Homeless people don't aggregate in cities like SF because they have liberal policies. Insofar as not actively and often illegally shipping them out is a progressive policy (and considering what lots of other cities do, it is), they do exactly for that reason, since it results in them having an unbalanced inflow from places that do engage in such practices. Even beyond that, insofar as SF’s progressive policies toward the homelessness increase the survivability of homelessness more than they get people out of it, they probably, simply by that means, increase aggregation of the homeless in the city. A less progressive policy aimed at maximizing homeless misery and reducing survivability of homelessness would reduce the aggregation of homeless in the city.
iscrewyou 6y ago
Check his other articles. He simply takes the reports and adds the same title for many states. It’s honest but disingenuous journalism.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  Decontextualized factoids aren't honest journalism. It's emotionally geared cherry-picking (and, as you point out, lazy mass-produced emotionally-geared cherry-picking.)
stmfreak 6y ago
As a California tax payer, I appreciate these sunshine reports. Calling them a hit piece reveals you too have some sort of bias or axe to grind. Government work was supposed to be fairly compensated with pension and benefits, while avoiding the instability risks of the private sector. Now we are told it has all the stability plus super generous pensions and salary that would make the best workers in the private sector jealous. It reveals the obscene corruption of our political class runs through the entire system.
- siromega 6y ago
  “ Now we are told it has all the stability plus super generous pensions and salary that would make the best workers in the private sector jealous.” Well, considering that most private sector workers don’t have pensions anymore, it probably would make them jealous. In the private sector they’ve all been replaced with 401ks and maybe a feeble matching of a few thousand dollars from your employer. The way I look at it is, public sector jobs are probably what private sector jobs in America would look like if employee compensation didn’t divorce productivity gains starting in the 1980s. Which is why they look so generous by comparison.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Calling them a hit piece reveals you too have some sort of bias or axe to grind. No, because it is, in fact, a hit piece. Were it, instead, an attempt to provide a useful picture on which people could form an informed understanding, here are things it would provide information on that it does not: * What proportion of the surveyed workforce does this over-$100k population represent, * How does the pay of the highlighted population compare to that of private sector and/or other-state employees doing similar work with similar qualifications. This doesn't even rise to the level of cherry picking facts to paint a biased narrative, since there isn't even a narrative here. It's cherry-picking decontextualized factoids to provoke a emotional reaction. > Now we are told it has all the stability plus super generous pensions and salary that would make the best workers in the private sector jealous. $100k salary plus public sector benefits wouldn't make the best workers in the private sector jealous. A lot for this is public agency CEOs and other executives making quite a lot for generic “workers” but much less than private sector executives,and public sector workforces being management heavy because a lot of the operations are contracted out. And the isolated unique individuals which are pointed to, there's consistently no analysis or explanation of the specific circumstances producing the unusually high compensation. And that's because if they did that, it would undercut the emotional response the entire piece is careful geared to provoke by avoiding context.

erichocean 6y ago

Pre-COVID, California was a model of fiscal responsibility.

surfmike 6y ago
Long term we got pension issues, but yes in fact, our previous governor was great at cutting back spending and was very fiscally responsible. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/dec/18/jerry-brown/does-california-have-budget-surplus-nearly-30-bill/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/dec/18/jerry-brow...
adt2bt 6y ago
Not sure if facetious, but this appears generally true on the face of it. They had a $21B surplus last year, and COVID has decimated state tax incomes across the board. Post-COVID, it should be expected that they'll be just fine. I agree with GP that this just feels like a hit piece.
- stmfreak 6y ago
  How do you declare a $21B surplus while carrying a $1T unfounded pension liability?

pauldickwin 6y ago

And is this rainy-day fund working? I am seeing that the human feces pickup-patrol in SF is costing taxpayers up to $184k each and SF is becoming an even worse homeless-friendly dump with California's extreme liberal policies.

fragsworth 6y ago
Homeless people don't aggregate in cities like SF because they have liberal policies. They aggregate in cities like SF because they are dense. Cities also tend to be liberal, but correlation != causation.
- omgwtfbyobbq 6y ago
  And have hospitable climates, which is why there are a lot people there in general.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Homeless people don't aggregate in cities like SF because they have liberal policies. Insofar as not actively and often illegally shipping them out is a progressive policy (and considering what lots of other cities do, it is), they do exactly for that reason, since it results in them having an unbalanced inflow from places that do engage in such practices. Even beyond that, insofar as SF’s progressive policies toward the homelessness increase the survivability of homelessness more than they get people out of it, they probably, simply by that means, increase aggregation of the homeless in the city. A less progressive policy aimed at maximizing homeless misery and reducing survivability of homelessness would reduce the aggregation of homeless in the city.

iscrewyou 6y ago

Check his other articles. He simply takes the reports and adds the same title for many states. It’s honest but disingenuous journalism.

dragonwriter 6y ago
Decontextualized factoids aren't honest journalism. It's emotionally geared cherry-picking (and, as you point out, lazy mass-produced emotionally-geared cherry-picking.)

stmfreak 6y ago

As a California tax payer, I appreciate these sunshine reports. Calling them a hit piece reveals you too have some sort of bias or axe to grind. Government work was supposed to be fairly compensated with pension and benefits, while avoiding the instability risks of the private sector. Now we are told it has all the stability plus super generous pensions and salary that would make the best workers in the private sector jealous. It reveals the obscene corruption of our political class runs through the entire system.

siromega 6y ago
“ Now we are told it has all the stability plus super generous pensions and salary that would make the best workers in the private sector jealous.” Well, considering that most private sector workers don’t have pensions anymore, it probably would make them jealous. In the private sector they’ve all been replaced with 401ks and maybe a feeble matching of a few thousand dollars from your employer. The way I look at it is, public sector jobs are probably what private sector jobs in America would look like if employee compensation didn’t divorce productivity gains starting in the 1980s. Which is why they look so generous by comparison.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Calling them a hit piece reveals you too have some sort of bias or axe to grind. No, because it is, in fact, a hit piece. Were it, instead, an attempt to provide a useful picture on which people could form an informed understanding, here are things it would provide information on that it does not: * What proportion of the surveyed workforce does this over-$100k population represent, * How does the pay of the highlighted population compare to that of private sector and/or other-state employees doing similar work with similar qualifications. This doesn't even rise to the level of cherry picking facts to paint a biased narrative, since there isn't even a narrative here. It's cherry-picking decontextualized factoids to provoke a emotional reaction. > Now we are told it has all the stability plus super generous pensions and salary that would make the best workers in the private sector jealous. $100k salary plus public sector benefits wouldn't make the best workers in the private sector jealous. A lot for this is public agency CEOs and other executives making quite a lot for generic “workers” but much less than private sector executives,and public sector workforces being management heavy because a lot of the operations are contracted out. And the isolated unique individuals which are pointed to, there's consistently no analysis or explanation of the specific circumstances producing the unusually high compensation. And that's because if they did that, it would undercut the emotional response the entire piece is careful geared to provoke by avoiding context.