i work for the state and resent all the vicious rantings in the sacbee, fresno bee etc. i work at a developmental center in the san joaquin valley. we serve court ordered developmentallly disabled adults who have committed crimes but have been judged incompetent to stand trial. i worked hard to become licenced as a psych tech. i work hard at my job. since we are 24/7 care, i work hard 3 days a month for free. the people i work with would scare the crap out of some folks. they can be assaultive, delusional, inappropriate to an extreme. these folks need the services which department of developmental services and department of mental health provide. or we can just stick them in jail where they will complete their sentence and be released to reoffend over and over because of not receiving treatment and appropriate placement aftercare. this protects citizens from crimes being perpetrated upon them. many of these folks commited crimes like rape and child molestation. we all agree that measures must be taken, but it appears to us that the state employee has been forced to bear the brunt of economic pain as well as being portrayed to the tax paying public as public enemy # 1. don't forget that we also pay taxes, consume goods, and by and large are registered voters. the saving being realized by punishing ca state employees is a drop in the bucket to what is required to balance the budget. sacramento has not forced the people in the capital building to forgo 3 days pay, nor have certain state entities furloughed their employees. what vital service do these people provide to the citizens of the state of ca? can you say expense account, per diem, honorary 128K position for being ahnold's friend, don't forget nice leased vehicles which are paid for by me and you! how come no one is ranting and raving about accomodations and tax breaks given to big oil and special interest lobbies. thats where the red ink is bleeding from.

This isn't about right wing or left wing. We have a moderate Republican Governor and a Democratic representation across the board. Both parties (and the people who vote for them, thats us) have continued to raise budgets in good times, and then raise them even more in bad times. Common sense tells me that you pull back your budgets in bad times. If a person is in foreclosure on his house, and in bankruptcy, the equivalent of California (and the U.S. Federal Gov't.) would be for this person to go out and get an extra credit card to max that card out to, just before he loses everything he has. You know, like what will happen to us soon.

I am a state employee, working in an agency that is self-supporting and does not exist on any money from the general fund. Yet, with this additional furlough day, my pay will have been cut 14% this year.
My mother is dying of cancer in Utah. This pay cut will force me to make a Hobson's choice - either I visit her while she is alive, or attend her funeral. I will not be able to afford both. I would sure like to have Arnold's millions right now.

Why not just recall Swartzneggar and get Governor who will do his job and not pressure Congress to abandon the people THEY represent.

It is dead wrong to steal from education and children's or anyone's health without taxing tobacco, liquor and oil.

Bill posted "State employees can retire at 50 and get up to 90% of their last year’s salary in pensions. Fire fighter and police officers can easily make over 100,000/year in pension.

Well this is true, but it takes them 30 years of working the toughest jobs to get that 90% pension. And the door is always open to those willing to place their lives on the line to make society a safer place, so I would say if it is all that wonderful and glorious, why not apply for a position?

I would ask Bill, when was the last time he had a building collapse on him while fighting a fire to save someone’s life? Or when was the last time he got a vial substance made from an inmate’s body fluids thrown in his face while he was trying to make a count to ensure all inmates were in there cells. Or when was the last time he got shot at by some wacko, while responding to a back up call of someone trying to beat down his wife?

I would venture to say: Never, but he enjoys the benefits provided by those that have and do every day.

Let's privatize the jails, DMV and other services. This would get rid of the fat pensions. If you tax oil , oil is going to tax you. Who cares what Exon made. The Politicians and their union thugs have no right to anyone's money including Exon.

Green shoots? We'll get green shoots!

Right after the current financial fire burns our forest of political deadwood to the ground. All that self-absorbed, liberal, baby boomer dry rot has to go. When it does, a new generation will grow up in the aftermath, tough, savvy and hard like the folks who lived through the 1930's.

They will be the green shoots that rebuild America with classic values of thrift, industry and responsibility. We can only hope they don't spoil their kids as badly as the Boomers' parents did, and so avoid creating another generational train wreck like that.

The electorate wants government spending paid for with the state's visa card until the card is maxed out. With the highest taxes in the nation, we should all be ashamed that we allowed our state government to get this out of control. Other states like New York and our federal government will soon follow our lead to insolvency.

The 21st century will not be an American century as the 20th Century was, precisely because of our collective fiscal irresponsibility as citizens. The party is over, now enjoy the hangover and bills.

Here are the reasons why california is broke.

-Ever growing unions in public sector.

-Ever growing salaries and benefits. State employees can retire at 50 and get upto 90% of their last years salary in pensions. Fire fighter and police officers can easily make over 100,000/year in pension. Now the state is paying these retirees and current employees over 100k salaries.

-Ever growing medical bills. These state employees get paid insurance as part of the retirement. We pay 25 to 35 as copay but these unions go on strike if they are asked to pay $10.00

-During growth year unions add more employees but during slow down they don't cut the numbers, the best they can do is furloughs.

Democratic leadership is in bed with the union bosses. Thank god we have the 2/3 majority, otherwise unions would have drained more public funds and democrats would have happily increased the taxes.

Some state employees are obviously over paid, like in any other indipendent company, or other gov offices.
But mostly it looks like they are robbing the poor to give to the poorer..Robinhood effect...but hey guys, a lot of independent companies have taken pay decreases with no days off, a furlough with a day off is better than a pay cut.

Get on with it legislature and get this budget passed with no tax increases.

People should have had better since than to have a family any size before getting a job that will support them and have ability to have medical insurance..common since.. and stop living a fairy tail mother God mother will take care of me approach. There was no welfare when I grew up, the poor grew up knowing they had to work, when did that become a disgrace.

1. Some of you wackos in here are totally uneducated and uninformed. No.. it is not true that state employees are already sharing the pain that private industries are. Proove it, give me a credible link. In fact it is a fact that they have hired 1000 more employees since arnold threatned to layoff 5000 employees when none has. Why is it that private sectors go bankrupt and shed jobs when all you govt employees are protected? I have a friend who works for govt and self confessed making 60k/year to stare at a wall 4 days a week with one of those other days breaking rocks. Talk about waste from govn't?

2. DId you know that the state budget has increased tremendously in the past 5 years? All those years when they were getting record surplus they did not save for rainny day funds instead they put it and spent it in more programs. The state's budget has quadruple in the past 10 years when our population hasn't grown all that much. Go out there and do some research you wack job idiots who claimed that we can't cut these jobs. We have plenty of cuts to do. Why bloat the budget up when the services required aren't needed.

3. There are less tax payers and more tax takers in this state. Another source of the problem. Education? Illegal immigrants are a problem to this state, it is the reason why we have more students in classrooms than we're supposed to get. They drain approx 15 billion/year. That's a huge number. The middle class are already paying their butts off and they planned more taxes? What? To drive more tax payers out and take more tax takers like illegal immigrants? Such as Obama's health care plan is like a magnet to attracts these flees and scumbags to suck the tax payers dry.

There really seems to be a lot of misinformation out there. For one thing, all public employee salaries are public information. Anyone can request the salary schedule and benefits provided to public workers. I wish we could say the same about private corporations and the savings they recieve in corporate tax loopholes. Everyone deserves to make a decent wage and have the ability to provide for themselves. No one has to pay more taxes...but in that choice comes the consequenses of having less services. That is true of anything. Don't expect to pay 2 star hotel prices and get 5 star quality and service. Our state has become a 2 star hotel and no one wants to step up and pay for the quality that they have grown to expect. Our schools are a prime example. We are 47 in the nation in per pupil spending and our average test scores reflect that. You get what you pay for.

Michael....
Amazing what the staggering incompetency of Swarzeneggar and his fellow Republicans have done to this state. Add to this the idiots in the state who elected him and want services without having to pay for them.

Atleast he is trying to stop the UNION and democrat stop raising TAX! Forget the bonus and perks, we can layoff or outsourcse 50% our job over sea save tax payer money in the long run. Democrat and Union ......u make Arnold is look like robin hood to the tax payer