No kidding. These Soviet-style kommie bosses will never willingly agree to give up their ill-gained power. These are the people that will cry bloody murder about budget cuts hurting kids. But one of the underlyging reasons there is a budget shortfall in the State and in Contra Costa County is because the CALPERS henchmen in the Assembly and pliant County Supervisors agreed to pay for out-of-control public employee wages and retirement benefits. So the politicians choose to whack the programs for poor people to make sure they have enough payola for the union bosses.
I saw this happen in 2003 as the chair of the county’s Economic Opportunity Council (EOC) that oversees CSBG programs. The County called in every social service program the EOC funded with CSBG funds and took the money back 9 months into the contract period so they could use the CSBG funds to pay for spiking employee health and retirement costs of the blessed Community Services Department at the expense of social services.
Here’s how it works. Local One and CALPERS always gets theirs first. Poor people get screwed, and the kommie politicians and media blame it on the nasty Republicans. Works every time.
In the real world, it’s not Schwarzenegger’s budget breaking the backs of the poor, its CALPERS and the County reitrement system and the public employee union goons protecting their turf at all costs, even when it means cutting programs for the poor. And this is what the self-righteous Left calls “Progressive.” Indeed. For once, let’s restore the programs for the kids and pare back the outrageous union benefits.