Assembly Bill 1383: “doubling down on a mistake 27 years ago that has helped drive up taxpayer pension costs by more than eightfold.”

Sometimes I don’t think there’s any hope for Democracy as long as we allow the public employee unions to fund our elections. Unions contribute the largest share in elections in California, including Chico. And now California legislators, largely elected by the unions, are pushing through a bill that is, according to Dan Borstein of Bay Area News Group,  “doubling down on a mistake 27 years ago that has helped drive up taxpayer pension costs by more than eightfold.“

Borstein reports, “Affecting workers hired since 2012, Assembly Bill 1383 would raise the salary limit well-paid public employees of all professions could use to calculate their pensions and increase retirement benefits for police and firefighters.“

Yes, former Governor Brown made some modest amendments to the pension agreements – Public Employees Pension Reform Act, or PEPRA, dictated that employees hired after 2013 would pay more toward the cost of their pensions. Still not enough, but yeah, if we didn’t get that the ball would have dropped by now, and maybe that would have been a good thing. This pension deal is like the biggest, nastiest pimple you ever had, and when it pops, California will be sinking in a sea of puss and debt.

Contact your state legislator and ask them how much money they have received from public safety unions.