Cause hell, even In-n-Out workers make more than you do now. Then again, seven an a quarter - man I wish I was pullin down that kinda dough, you know. This is worth a good laugh, check out how Arnold just slashed salaries
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday ordered about 200,000 state workers to be paid the federal minimum wage this month because the state Legislature has not passed a budget.
Department of Personnel Administration Director Debbie Endsley sent the order in a letter to the state controller, who refused a similar order two years ago and may try to do the same thing this time. Most state employees will be paid the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour for the July pay period.
Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said the change should be reflected in state employees' next paycheck. Workers will be paid in full retroactively once a budget is passed.
The Legislature has failed to take steps to close California's $19 billion budget deficit, even as the new fiscal year began Thursday.
Schwarzenegger's order does not affect a little more than 30,000 workers, including California Highway Patrol officers, who are in unions that recently negotiated new contracts with the administration. Those contracts included pay cuts and pension reforms that will save the state money.
Asked whether the Republican governor was sending a message to the unions that have not yet signed new contracts, McLear said no.
"We're sending a message to the controller to follow the law," he said.
Schwarzenegger made a similar order two years ago, but it never took affect because state Controller John Chiang refused to comply. The courts later sided with Schwarzenegger, but the matter is on appeal.
Jacob Roper, deputy press secretary for the controller, said Thursday that Chiang does not intend to follow the order, in part because the state's computerized payroll system cannot handle the change.
"This is uncharted waters here," Roper said. "No city, county or state has ever taken this action before."
Roper said the action could cost the state billions of dollars because the action would violate employment law.
Salaried managers who are not paid on an hourly basis would see their pay cut to $455 per week.
Oh boy, how that sweet retro pay will really help people after they have their utilities shut off or get evicted. One has to wonder what exactly happened to California. Then everyone will point out to that one that California has been fucked for a long time and even if we didn't elect our current Austrian body builder/action movie star to drive behind the wheel, we'd still be crashing into a brick wall because this state fucked itself a long time ago with the gipper.
Then again, by financially crippling state employees Arnold is circuitously smashing the state. Congrats Arnold, I support this decision in the most ironic of ways. I mean, let's get real (Cause the shit just got real, am I rite?) what was he suppose to do? Given that our state is in horrible debt and legally it's impossible to raise taxes.
This has really been something nearly 30 years in the making and it's good to see it finally starting to happen so people realize how fucking stupid Regan was. Let's flash back to Prop 13
Section 3. From and after the effective date of this article, any
changes in state taxes enacted for the purpose of increasing revenues
collected pursuant thereto whether by increased rates or changes in
methods of computation must be imposed by an Act passed by not less
than two-thirds of all members elected to each of the two houses of
the Legislature, except that no new ad valorem taxes on real
property, or sales or transaction taxes on the sales of real property
may be imposed.
I mean, there's nothing Arnold can do about it. I mean, except for scaling back the prison system or revoking the executive order he signed that cut the car tax fee by 67% or actually working with the state assembly to get a fucking two-thirds majority approval on raising taxes. But here's the thing..
It's illegal for him to raise taxes by executive order
it's illegal for him to cut programs by executive order
it's illegal for him to sign an unbalanced budget
the legislature will never agree with him because it's gerrymandered as fuck
He tried fixing the last one with a ballot proposition when he first got into office but it got voted down because congressional democrats wanted to protect their gerrymandered as fuck seats and campaigned like hell against it -- so later Arnold struck a deal with Nancy Pelosi to let congressional districts be gerrymandered while fixing the state ones and that ballot proposition passed.
Unfortunately that took enough time that now we won't get new districts until next election after Arnold is termed out, so having a decent legislature will have to wait. So in the meantime it's either this or literally shut down programs. Since it's also illegal to borrow without authorization.
I mean, isn't it a legal requirement for this to happen when the state doesn't have any sort of budget? It's not like Arnold is trying to be a dick or anything. Hell, if anything, it's comical because by pushing this, he's also showing off that our shit is so old, we couldn't even try to fix it if we wanted to. There's essentially no way to actually implement this retroactive budget cause the paycheck system is run on donated macintosh computers from 1985
But just think of how worthless that job now feels. Salaried managers who are not paid on an hourly basis would see their pay cut to $455 per week. Think about it. California unemployment pays $450 a week max, tack on the $25 federal bonus and you come out ahead for NOT working and just getting fired. I think the option here is pretty obvious as to what to do.
Hell, you don't even have to get fired or anything. Because it's a wage reduction, you can still file for benefits. All the extra numbers of people filing would pretty much fuck everything over in our precious glass house economy.
Though, maybe it wont work after all. Unemployment benefits require state workers to process the paperwork and oh hey, what's this.. there's no more start workers because they all got their salaries slashed to $7.25. My plan just failed, oh well.
But anyhow, Controller Chiang is still stalling as much as possible and if the court order doesn't come down by the 21st, he won't comply and the workers will be good for august at least. The last time this almost happened banks said they'd give loans for state workers with accounts to keep them a float. Though if that failed, there's always suicide.
There's a record of California not doing the things necessary to keep us from sinking deeply into debt. Hell, they still won't comply with that federal order to release some number of nonviolent prisoners to relieve overcrowding. Arnold's actually taking it to the Supreme Court and unfortunately Clarence Thomas is still on the bench, the guy who thinks the 8th Amendment doesn't apply to prison conditions or inmate abuse and that 7-year-olds can be executed for stealing $50.
Just a little heads up here, this should come to no surprise but this is going to be entirely blamed on democrats and out-of-control spending, Chicago style politics, etc. pick your buzzword. If California had only listened to sensible conservative ideas, this wouldn't have ever happened.. What will Jerry Brown do to fix it all? Save us Meg! Save us from ourselves since you're clearly not in the pocket of anyone....
I think the long term outlook on all this can be summed up with one phrase; "Death is certain", because we can't raise taxes! Those multi-millionaires already pay too much!! We see now that Arnold was an awful choice for governor. Don't blame me, I voted for the Porno star!
No wait. I actually did vote for Arnold and am very proud of it. Did you see the other choices on the ballot? Porn star, shitty drug lawyer and Gary Coleman? Shit. Arnold was the best choice. Besides, let's face it - California's been fucked since Reagan anyway.
Even the 3rd District Court of Appeal doesn't give a fuck. They've upheld a 17-month old ruling allowing Governor Schwarzenegger to reduce state workers to minimum wage in the absence of a budget. The court, agreeing with a Sacramento Superior Court ruling, said State Controller John Chiang overstepped his authority by refusing to issue minimum-wage paychecks to state workers during the 2008 budget impasse.
And before you guys start asking if Arnold lowered his and the legislatures own compensation to min. wage, realize that Arnold doesn't take a paycheck. Though nice try, liberals. Let's just get on with it Arnold. Legalize it already. GET TO THE CHOOMA! We should just legalize weed, raise taxes. How hard is this? Well, I guess I don't know too well about how easy it is to get the weed legalized (Prop 19, yo!), but the taxes part is pretty hard, actually. Not helpful that Arnold said he had no intention of striking down Prop 13 as someone really has to.
I guess the reason California's woes are big news is only because it's a big ass state. Plenty of other states have similar or worse issues and many of those are far more systemic, such as the south for example. California's debt to GDP is actually quite good. Better than the national average. The problem is that in California it is illegal/impossible to fix it in any way.
In general, Red states tend to have better debt to GDP ratios than blue states. It's due to red states having fewer social services and their lower overall tax overhead attracts mega corporations.
I guess we're just going to ride this whole thing out. One really does hope that banks allow for loans. A lot of employees, if this does go through, will be seeing their next paycheck hit in the negatives since it's cumulative. But hey, Golden State, right? Wish they call could be Californian..
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