Says Fritz, “Elected officials and the governor are powerless, and all term-out eventually. Administrators, such as those in near-bankrupt Vallejo, are giving up trying to balance budgets; overtaxed and underserved citizens can move to another state, and businesses can simply shut down or relocate. Unions endure.”

Fritz suggests that unions should recognize that municipalities and counties simply cannot afford promised contracts that feature early retirements and overly generous retiree lifetime health benefits. Instead, unions should promote labor, not leisure by increasing retirement age.

“On average, if each new member keeps working just five more years, pension costs will be cut in half. Retiree health benefit costs will almost disappear if more choose to work until they qualify for Medicare. Fewer positions will be cut or left vacant. Businesses will pay less for government services and can hire more workers to compete with out-of-state and foreign businesses…Employee pension contributions can be reduced or eliminated; this will increase their take-home pay to pump into local economies…Studies have shown people who keep working tend to live longer, healthier lives than those who retire sooner. Unions can and must lead the way.”

I agree. And I’m ready to do something about it.

Since Senator Torlakson’s endorsement of incumbent Supervisor Mary Piepho’s re-election bid, it has become clear that our Democratic representatives in Sacramento and the Board of Supervisors (BOS) in Martinez do not have the power or political will to solve the County’s $51-million budget shortfall. Appealing to Supervisor John Gioia, for instance, would be akin to negotiating with some crippled humpback with a lisp named Igor, instead of dealing direct with Dr. Frankenstein.

Therefore, it’s time the taxpayers of Contra Costa County go straight to the power source in Martinez. We need to humbly take our hat in hand, get ready to eat some serious crow, and go crawling to the boss, Mr. Big, Rollie Katz.

Rollie! What do you want? Fame? Fortune? How about a pat on the back and a job well done? How about a new suit and a car detail once a month on CoCo Tax or Contra Costa Council? This could all be yours only with a few minor gimmees that would demonstrate Local One’s willingness, once again, to stand in solidarity with the rest of the working families in Contra Costa. And we aren’t even talking increasing the age of retirement, although that looks like a damn good idea, wouldn’t you agree?

Anyways, longer lives and more job security in the long run for your union members aside, all we’d really need to do this fiscal year is a couple simple things. Two minutes. That’s all we need.

1) Let’s get retirees on Medicare, and 2) ask employees to save county services on the chopping block, by agreeing to pay a $10-15-25/month (single-couple-family) healthcare contribution with a co-pay capped at $20 or less per visit. This is what most working families in the county currently shell out and is just not that much to ask. OK, OK, maybe just take a look at subbing out a few of the no-show jobs from the health care budget like Dr. Walker suggested. I’m just sayin’…throw me a bone, OK?

Rollie. It’d break my heart to see all those critical services and public safety get cut just so county workers don’t have to contribute a pittance to their health benefits or pay a meager co-pay like the rest of us working schmucks. And the Times’ Borenstein says retirees would get better healthcare and the County could save almost $37-million a year if we got them on Medicare at 65.

These two items alone would go a long way toward solving the County budget crisis, Badabing!

Look. Just move an inch, OK? Otherwise it will be a PR nightmare when people realize the BOS is in fact protecting union members instead of representing all of the county’s working families while coddling public employees instead of ensuring delivery of critical services. It’s hard to argue with the truth, man. Help me out here, would ya?

Talk to me, Rollie. I’m serious, dawg. Have your peeps call my peeps and we can get the pencils out, sit down, take off our shoes, do the math, and make this thing happen. Then everyone’s happy, go have a drink, you know what I’m sayin’? Look, maybe we can even make it look like John Cullen, the BOS and the rest of the wannabes really made it happen, you know? Win-win, smiley photo-ops, the whole enchilada. You da man. Call me.

Is government just a means to other ends: such as human freedom, or economic prosperity, or the enhancement of the nation’s strength? Or is its purpose to uphold a healthy public commons in which a vast diversity of human activity is maintained for the long-term wellbeing of all citizens?

Should Conservatives simply understand government as the guarantor of a free market through which, it is assumed, every good can be realized in freedom from government intervention. Or…perhaps government has a responsibility to do justice not only to capital, property, and labor, but also to individuals, families, churches, schools, ecology, and other dimensions of civil society, none of which is reducible to the economic considerations (or individuals)

I also noted that in most political discourse,

The freedom (of people) to choose schools, medical care, and retirement accounts; or the call to protect the unborn, frail and aging, and minority communities, as well as defend human identity from modernity’s shiny new toy, genetic science, are relegated to back bench status…

More recently, while commenting on California budget cuts, Senator Torlakson’s recent newsletter and e-mail blast to constituents begged the question:

Do we want to be a state that provides quality education to its students? Do we want to be a state that takes care of its elderly and disabled? Do we want to continue to run a higher education system that is the envy of the world and that every deserving student can afford to attend? Do we want to provide health care to those who need it? Do we want to be a state with ample parks for public recreation?

These are the fundamental issues before us today – not only for members of the Legislature, but for all residents of this great Golden State. Previous Governors and Legislatures have been willing to agree upon reasonable cuts while also asking the public for help in resolving large budget shortfalls.

This then is the great divide. Senator Torlakson is correct in noticing the fundamental nature of the funding choices we make as a polity. His lofty goals are laudable. Yet, in many respects, only more government is the destined outcome, not justice for the frail and elderly, parents, and students; or the schools, non-profit organizations, churches and businesses that can better serve those specific purposes. For at bottom is the uncritical assumption that the State alone is the most competent to fulfill these goals to the detriment of a healthy civil society and its institutions.

The role of government then should be to work in partnership with the strengths of civil society rather than lord over it; especially with the debilitating taxing structure needed to feed the beast of a monolithic State hunkered down in Sacramento that thinks it a) should be everything—by gobbling up civil society; and b) do everything. Torlakson and the California Legislature would produce far better results toward achieving the Senator’s professed goals by recognizing, engaging, and nurturing the proper roles and participation of a wide variety of civil institutions, without discrimination, to provide the services they are far more competent to provide.

Unfortunately, at the political level, it has become more important for politicians to make sure their political supporters in the public employee, healthcare, and teachers’ unions get the work—whether or not they are competent—instead of partnering with the civil institutions who have some other mission focus than 13 holidays, 3 weeks vacation to start, and an unaffordable and unsustainable retirement package.