V-I think they may mean that California is second to the USA's national economy. I believe CA is still the largest state economy...followed by Texas and NY.
What will happen to balance the CA budget? Did you really think the answer was here in eons?
I believe NY has been because of the banking and investment banking community there. I am not so sure about TX although geographically huge having as large a financial base as NY. That is reflected in the taxes it generates which, until this last year, sent in more $$ in federal taxes than it gets back. An interesting question deserving of some research.
NJ always sends in more federal taxes than it gets back...and we are somewhere around 8th or 9th. Size does play a large role. In the case of Texas, so does the oil industry.
Big target right now is capping public sector retirement accounts. Another rumor is new legislation to make the retirement liability to the state more level with the rest of the country. Big fear is accusations that the police, fire, educators,and state employees pay, benefits, and retirement are responsible for the states financial problems in a tough economy. california may be a Democrat state but they think Republican when it comes to taxes....
You know Dell they try to get away with saying that in NJ too...there is a big problem with it. The NJ state teachers pension fund was way over funded for many, many years. Govs from Florio to Whitman (Dems and Republicans) "borrowed" from it to balance the state budget. Now it's full of IOU's that, instead of paying back they want to say "We can't afford to give you that benefit anymore".
I do think the people who collect more than one should be stopped. No teacher's benefits will make any state go broke.
My favorite "peeve" with the system here is the attorneys who work for the school boards. They enter the programs!! Their earnings outstrip most teachers by quite a bit. They use their annual retainer and any billable hours toward a future pension and most represent more than one school board. Then there are the part time employees in many municipalities getting full time perks. If you take all the "cheating" out of the system, poor little old school teachers will never break a state's budget.
I did not find the answer to this question, but in that search I did find out that California has more submarines than all but a very few countries (movie props presumably)-- My GUESS is that the oil and refinery profits during the price spike in 2008 may have propelled TX past CA BRIEFLY
posted by v123
5 months ago
You got a good point there jg. If it's a teachers pension program, teachers should be the only ones to benefit. That should be with any pension plan. Unfortunately over the years greedy hands have gotten into just about every type of pension fund and screwed it up.
Yeah, the ones who double dip and abuse the system are NOT the ones in the trenches doing the work everyday. They're usually much higher up the food chain.
I know I'm usually busy defending attorneys around here but this is one case where I feel what they are doing is wrong. They are school board employees but...come on now! By the way, my brother does not do that.
I've heard from several sources that Ca has the 8th largest economy in the world albeit a broke and broken economy. They are now handing out IOUs as payment as of yesterday. By the way, Texas is heavy into large banking and finance. It is also a medical mecca and is heavily involved in the tech industries and growing in spite of the lousy economy. It's also an international port state on the gulf. I'm not sure of it's world rating sizewise but is survuving this recessionary times better than most states are. Of course I'm backwards as usual, I moved from Texas to Ca.
California enacted an initiatitive law many years back which allows people to vote on many funding issues. They often vote no when it comes to paying the bills but still continue to demand the services. Many states now have unresolved budget problems due to the economic decline of the last several years. My state, Wisconsin, just passed its budget the other day and in theory at least we are not back on track. We have a biennial system wherein the budget is done every two years but revisited in the intervening year. It is interesting what is sacred. We have not increased the Beer tax in over 40 some years.
