Jack Dean misses a key point

Pension Reform Goes Off-Track:

Few pension reformers will blame Governor Jerry Brown for agreeing to support the federal government’s demand to temporarily exempt union transit workers from the pension reforms he championed. The standoff between the governor and the Obama Administration’s Labor Department over transit funds and pension reform was spelled out by the State Budget Solution’s Bob Williams last week in F&H. The bottom line for the state: Lose billions of dollars in transit funds or pull back on the requirements that transit workers donate to their pensions and that new hires work longer before retirement. While Brown will take the money, he also will take his fight to court against the half-century old law that the Obama Administration is relying on to force the issue. Another thing he should test in that court battle is the strength of federalism. The situation is another sign that states are losing rights said Jack Dean, editor of the website Pension Tsunami, which closely monitors activity related to pension reform. Dean agreed that the governor should not be blamed for backing off. He said he expected local governments were pushing the governor, saying they needed the transit money.

The story is the federal intervention in Brown's pension reform. The real issue that Jack Dean misses is why did California politicians agree to send their transit taxes back to DC when they knew that California only gets 75 cents back on the dollar. Unions are not the issue, ignorant local politicians and illiterate Democrats kept telling cities that DC money was a freebee. It is not, we are a doner state, and how did CA liberals agree to steal from a poor state, like CA and give the money to DC in the first place? The real problem with transit is that light rail is a loss maker. If CA voters had to pay for this stuff directly with their own taxes, we never would have gotten into this mess. Now we are stuck, DC is broke and in the medium term will be unable to subsidize these global warming monsters. CA liberals lied to the voters of CA, and now we are doomed.