I just read this in the Wikipedia entry on the financial crisis:
Quote:
Causes of budget deficit
A major source of the deficit has been the continuous growth in salaries and benefits of state employees during economic boom times. In 2009 more than 134,000 Bay Area public employees were reported by the Contra Costa Times to have earned annual base salaries in excess of $100,000; however, many of these employees were local employees, not state employees. A database of public employee salaries was also made available by San Jose Mercury News. As per the same source over 40,000 public employees in the Bay Area alone earned over $200,000 in 2009.
In 2008 the daily news also reported six figure salaries of many public officials in LA. The Sacramento Bee maintains an updated database of state worker salaries.
In addition, since 1978 California requires a supermajority i.e. the approval of more than half the legislative body, to increase taxes. This has been a major obstacle for lawmakers who favor tax increases but have not succeeded in gaining a supermajority.
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2008-10 California budget crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I think this is just one of several problems or "causes," but still: that's a lot of six-figure salaries.
Maybe I'm just bitter because you could triple my own salary and you'd still get only five figures.
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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot
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