While California continues to reel from the recession caused by Wall Street and big banks, some politicians and special interest groups are blaming teachers, firefighters, peace officers, and other public employees for the state's budget woes.

But as Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton notes: "Let's be clear: State employee pensions are not to blame for Sacramento's budget deficit. Not by any math."

Yet as CEO salaries soar, there are new efforts underway to undermine the retirement security of millions of middle class Californians, financed by out-of-state interests and right-wing zealots.

Here's some information on these scapegoaters and the political motivation behind their attempts to attack public employees.

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly

Republican Assemblyman Tim Donnelly represents the extreme right wing – the true face of pension "reform." A proud Tea Party member and border patrol "Minuteman," he has introduced legislation that would severely hurt retirement security for firefighters, peace officers and others who log overtime providing public safety (Assembly Bill 875).

A freshman legislator, Donnelly's right-wing radio talk show host behavior can be seen in videos like these: http://www.vvdailypress.com/articles/takes-25866-donnelly-funds.html, where he attacks those who serve the public as "feeding at the trough." He cites $100,000 pensions – when less than 2 percent of California pension recipients have pensions of that size (the average is $26,000).

He has proposed a two-tier system of retirement benefits, which would put billions of dollars back into the hands of Wall Street investors and big banks that caused our nation's financial crisis (Source: www.donnellyforassembly.com). He also advocates 401(k) plans – the same plans lost billions of dollars from the retirement accounts of hundreds of thousands of Californians.

Tell Assemblyman Donnelly you oppose his attempts to scapegoat public employees: http://www.donnellyforassembly.com/contacts/

Dan Pellissier: Minister of Propaganda

Dan Pellissier is president of California Pension Reform, a political group that has failed to register with the California Secretary of State or reveal its contributors (Source; Secretary of State's Office, 4/20/11). The group is an offshoot of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, which is funded by a secret out-of-state billionaire's foundation (Source: California Watch).

Pellissier has a long history of waging war on the retirement security of public employees. He served as chief consultant to California Assembly Republican Leader Scott Baugh (now a lobbyist who sits on the Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility's advisory board) and was chief of staff to former Assemblyman Keith Richman, who drafted a ballot initiative in 2005 that would have robbed the widows of firefighters and police officers of their pensions. Pellissier then went to work for the Schwarzenegger Administration, perhaps the most anti-public employee administration in recent California history.

And talk about the pot calling the kettle black: Pellissier has accumulated a significant pension that includes purchasing five years of "air time." When he turns 55 in five years, he will be collecting $5,000 per month (Source: Sacramento Bee, 3/27/11) – that's more than twice that of the typical state employee.

Pellissier has been the unofficial minister of propaganda for anti-pension forces. However, Pellissier's misinformation campaign is so out of whack with reality that CalPERS issued its own formal response correcting his error-filled statements. http://www.calpersresponds.com/issues.php/critic-pellissier-picture.

Pellissier also plans to file a ballot measure that will "freeze and then reduce pension benefits for current public employees." (Source: California Taxpayers Association, 4/1/2011).

David Crane

David Crane was Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Special Advisor for Jobs and Economic Growth. That the state lost millions of jobs and had negative growth during his tenure should say it all about his credibility.

Crane became Schwarzenegger's Scapegoater-In-Chief. A multi-millionaire and former investment banker, Crane even was named a "rock star" by the ultra-right-wing "California Watchdog" website produced by the Pacific Research Institute for his public employee bashing.

Here's one of his attacks in an article he penned for the Los Angeles Times calling public employee benefits a "time bomb."

"Because legislators are unwilling to raise issues that might offend that constituency (public employees), they have effectively turned the peroration of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address on its head: Instead of a government of the people, by the people and for the people, we have become a government of its employees, by its employees and for its employees."

And more outrageousness: In December 2010, he told the L.A. Times that the year 1978, "wasn't notable just because of Proposition 13. That was also the year public employees gained a power Franklin D. Roosevelt had warned against: collective bargaining rights."

"California hasn't been the same since," Crane continued. "Public workers have gained at the expense of private workers as government spending was redirected from infrastructure and education to higher salaries, pensions and other benefits."

According to critics, Crane is less a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat and more of a Bushocrat, an ultra-rich investor who supported G.W. Bush through two elections, and repeatedly frames the collective bargaining rights of government employees as an obstacle standing in the way of pension reform and budget balancing. Campaign finance records show that in March 1999, when Democrats were trying to hang onto the White House in the wake of Clinton's sex scandals, Crane gave $1,000 to Bush. And in June 2003, just three months after Bush invaded Iraq on a false pretenses, Crane saw fit to give Bush another $2,000.

In 2008, Crane donated $7,200 to Republican Tom Campbell's unsuccessful 2010 bid for US Sen. Barbara Boxer's seat. And in San Francisco, Crane was one of several billionaires who wrote big fat checks last fall in support of Measure B, which sought to curb the pension and health benefits of city workers, most of whom will make a fraction in their lifetime of what Crane rakes in each year from his widely diversified financial portfolio. Crane also has over $1 million invested in Acacia Partners, over $1 million in Bislett Partners, over $1 million in Kensico Partners, over $1 million in Semper Vic Partners, over $1 million in Berkshire Hathaway, whose CEO is Warren Buffet, over $1 million in the HCP Absolute Return Fund, whose Board includes Warren Hellman, and up to $1 million in Hall Capital Management, whose Board includes Hellman and Gap heir John Fisher. Crane also owns several million dollars stake in real estate investments, and has sizeable stock in Wells Fargo, Chesapeake Energy, Microsoft, Google, Pangloss Oil, Whole Foods Market, M&T Bank Corp., IBM, American Express, WalMart and Exxon.

And he gets income from Acacia Partners and Babcock & Brown, where he was a former partner from 1979 to 2003. While at Babcock, Crane reportedly brokered a controversial jet-lease deal between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Singapore Airlines that allowed Schwarzenegger to defer taxes on millions of dollars.

Crane clearly has his nest egg taken care of. It's a shame he's attacking hard-working middle class families who have earned theirs.

Read a blog post by Paul Weber of the Los Angeles Police Protection League on David Crane http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/comment/reply/8853

Read a blog post by UC Employees on Crane http://www.afscme3299.org/2011/03/10/sfbg-is-david-crane-just-another-kochhead/

Out-of-State Billionaire

Who's behind the well-financed attacks on California's public employees?

Pension busters say that it's an "out of state billionaire."

That's right: someone from beyond California's borders who has no worries about his own retirement security is bankrolling anti-public worker efforts in our state!

According to the investigative journalists at California Watch, "An unknown out-of-state foundation has become a substantial backer of an ambitious nonprofit group that is positioning itself at the center of the state's debate over public pensions."

And this billionaire and his foundation are pouring big bucks to attack public employees. Capitol Weekly noted the consulting firm hired to prepare the group's research is run by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's former finance director, Mike Genest. The firm, Capitol Matrix, will be paid $150,000 for its "work," according to Capitol Weekly. Meanwhile, the newspaper reported Genest's firm also soaked California taxpayers $20,000 for virtually the same work.

Dave Low, Chairman of Californians for Healthcare and Retirement Security, has called on Californians for Fiscal Responsibility to reveal the out-of-state donor financing its assault on California public employees. "It's time to pull back the curtain and expose the special interests parachuting in to target California's middle class. We don't need Wisconsin-read the style political attacks bankrolled by out-of-state-billionaires. Californians deserve to know the identities of these secret donors buying their way onto the ballot to try to change the California constitution for their own special interests."

Read California Watch's story, "Secret Out of State Donor Powering Pension Reform" http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/secret-out-state-donor-powering-pension-reform-group-9534

Read more about other Pension "Chicken Littles" here: http://www.calitics.com/diary/13347/who-funds-the-pension-chicken-littles

Marcia Fritz
Executive Director California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility

Fritz directs the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility. But is it even really a "foundation?"

Of course not. Its board of advisors aren't pension experts or academics. It includes a lobbyist, political consultant, a dealer in 401(k) plans, and anti-tax groups, including Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, and Lew Uhler of the National Tax Limitation Committee. http://www.californiapensionreform.com/about/advisory-board/

Fritz also refuses to reveal who the secret backer of the "Foundation's" efforts is. According to a report by investigative journalists at California Watch, all we know is that it is an out-of-state billionaire.

Fritz is one of the state's leading Chicken Littles. Here's what she told conservative Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund: "The taxpayer as well as essential government services are being crushed by unsustainable pension obligations."

Nevermind that pensions account for just 4 percent of the state budget. Nevermind that the state pays less for retirement as a percentage of payroll today than it did in 1980, when Jerry Brown was last Governor. The situation was not a crisis in 1980 and it is not today.

The headline-grabbing Fritz also publishes a list she calls "The $100,000 Club," failing to mention that less than two percent of public employees earn pensions of that magnitude. Fritz says she is a Democrat. But you'd never know it. She refers to those protecting pensions using Republican rhetoric like "union bosses," http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/18/opinion/la-oe-fritz-pension-reform-20110118/3 has accepted awards from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, and runs "Pension Boot Camps" that have featured speakers such as right-wing California Congressman Devin Nunes.

To watch Fritz try to explain her organization and its backing, watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8q06QkMmFY

Roger Niello

A multi-millionaire part-owner of a series of luxury auto dealerships in the Sacramento area, former Republican state assembly member Roger Niello apparently thinks it's better to have Porsches, not pensions. Niello has introduced a draconian ballot measure http://ag.ca.gov/cms_attachments/initiatives/pdfs/i938_initiative_11-0007_amdt_1ns.pdf that would drastically reduce retirement security for thousands of public employees in the very communities he used to represent.

As to the core of the initiative: it would make 62 the lowest allowable retirement age for all future public workers, leaving us with the real possibility of gray-headed police and firefighters working well beyond their able years. Remember, such "safety" retirement was instituted for the public's safety to ensure that those police and firefighters retired before age diminished their effectiveness and put the public at risk.

But you have to read all the way to Section 12d of the initiative for its real meat: an end to collective bargaining over pensions. This section would give public agencies exclusive authority over pension and other retirement terms and bar them from relinquishing "such authority in any employee contract or collective bargaining agreement." These are much the same sort of union busting rules that Wisconsin Gov. Walker and his state's Republican Legislature forced onto their public employee unions.

Meanwhile, via collective bargaining, California unions representing public employees have already negotiated significant savings both in the formula for how pensions are calculated and for what more employees pay into the pensions system each month.  Such negotiated changes saved the state more than $400 million in the last state budget alone.

Collective bargaining is also working to reduce pension costs for California's cities. A just-released survey shows many cities have negotiated lower cost second pension tiers, employee-employer cost sharing, and moderated pension formulas. Niello's initiative would make such agreements illegal.

Niello, who was soundly defeated in a race for State Senate last year, says he wants to run again. Just say NO to Niello.

See our "Boycott Niello" demonstration at Roger Niello's BMW dealership here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/the_state_worker/2011/03/unions-call-for-protest-urge-b.html

Read an article about how Niello's sloppy proposal will hurt California's middle class here: http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?_c=zm6pj05jib1jt6&xid=zm4wwlbnw8ljrq&done=.zm6pj05jibojt6

Senator Mimi Walters

Is it any surprise the wealthiest member of the California Legislature has introduced the most bills to punish California's middle class and scapegoats public employees whenever she can (even though her family business rakes in millions from state taxpayers)?

Walters says that "desperate times call for desperate measures" http://www.cssrc.us/web/33/publications.aspx?id=10553 that include slashing middle class retirement benefits. But Walters refuses to support any increases on her fellow millionaires who continue to live high on the hog during this recession.

Walters has introduced a number of bills http://cssrc.us/web/33/legislation.aspx this legislative session to reduce retirement security for public employees. She's also tried to derail the state's budget this year by saying she won't vote to balance the budget unless attempts are made to gut public employee pensions (despite the fact she'd never vote for the budget herself anyway). And finally, she is out to block negotiated state employee contracts – even though they contain major concessions by public employees http://www.sacbee.com/2011/04/18/3559596/republicans-poised-to-block-state.html.

Appearing on Fox News (where else?) http://cssrc.us/web/33/publications.aspx?id=10380 , Walters said public employees are making more than private sector employees (wrong, private sector workers earn 4-8% more according to the most recent studies) and that gutting pensions would help solve the state's budget problems this year (also wrong; pensions are less than 4% of the state budget).

Read about Mimi's millions on her financial disclosure statement here: http://www.fppc.ca.gov/form700/2010/Legislature/Senate/R_Walters_Mimi.pdf

 

Tell Senator Walters you oppose her efforts to slash benefits for the middle class: http://cssrc.us/web/33/contact_me.aspx

Daniel W. Hancock
Chairman, Little Hoover Commission

For years, the Little Hoover Commission had a well-deserved reputation as a government watchdog that delivered the truth – and nothing but the truth – about issues facing the government. But as he exited Sacramento, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger stacked the Commission with political appointees who delivered a sloppy report full of unlawful and unconstitutional recommendations on the state's public pension system http://www.lhc.ca.gov/studies/204/report204.html.

Because Schwarzenegger's appointees are private sector business people with little or no knowledge of state government, the interests of pensioners weren't represented in the study; the commissioners are largely from industries that have tried to reduce labor costs and increase corporate profits by cutting employee pensions in the private sector. In fact, many of the recommendations are repackaged proposals from the same special interests who have been working to eliminate and reduce retirement benefits for public employees for years, including former Schwarzenegger and Wilson Labor Secretary Vicki Bradshaw.

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer http://www.treasurer.ca.gov/news/releases/2011/20110311.pdf led the critics of the report, calling it "long on rhetoric and short on thoughtful analysis." He noted the report's main recommendation of cutting benefits for new hires "besides being legally dubious, has no foundation."

The CEO of CalSTRS http://www.calstrs.com/Newsroom/What%27s%20New/little_hoover_response.aspx  also had harsh words for the report. "Our conclusion is that implementing the recommendations made in the report – even if it were possible to do – would likely weaken, rather than strengthen, retirement security for California's public educators," noted CalSTRS CEO Jack Ehnes." In fact, in some circumstances, the Commission's recommendations could increase the total cost of providing retirement benefits.  The report makes many of the same misdiagnoses others have made of the cause of the financial problems faced by public pensions. These misdiagnoses lead to impractical recommendations, which may reduce the liabilities incurred by public pension plans, but do so at the expense of the retirement security of school educators and at increased cost to school employers."

Ehnes continues that "... it is time to move past the political rhetoric and focus on solutions that are truly responsive to the problems."  Not only are there substantive legal weaknesses in the report, but it fails to convey the underlying drivers of this financial dilemma. The report opens with the assumption that underfunding is due primarily to "'overly generous benefit promises, wishful thinking and an unwillingness to plan prudently,' a premise that fails to reflect any recognition of the financial market's collapse and its underlying causes...The credibility of the report also suffers from broad generalizations that do not hold up when applied to specific plans."

CalPERS http://www.calpersresponds.com/downloads/key-observations-lh-report.pdf. With its $230 billion in funds, CalPERS noted the report ignores its recent recovery of assets -- some $70 billion since the financial crisis. The fund had a 13.3 percent return last year and 7.9 percent annual return over the last 20 years.

And so did. CalPERS http://www.calpersresponds.com/downloads/key-observations-lh-report.pdf. With its $230 billion in funds, CalPERS noted the report ignores its recent recovery of assets -- some $70 billion since the financial crisis. The fund had a 13.3 percent return last year and 7.9 percent annual return over the last 20 years.

CalPERS also blasted the loaded language of the report -- particularly that pension costs would "crush government" as a "gross exaggeration." CalPERS pension costs represented 1.8 percent of the State's $87.2 billion general fund budget in FY 2009-10.  In comparison, the cost of debt service amounted to 5.3 percent of the general fund budget in the same year For every pension dollar paid over the last 20 years, 64 cents comes from investments, 21 cents from employers, and 15 cents from members. And so did. CalPERS http://www.calpersresponds.com/downloads/key-observations-lh-report.pdf. With its $230 billion in funds, CalPERS noted the report ignores its recent recovery of assets -- some $70 billion since the financial crisis. The fund had a 13.3 percent return last year and 7.9 percent annual return over the last 20 years.