The Obligations of Compassion

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A recent column in the New York Times entitled “Trump Wants Law and Order Front and Center,” seems to imply that the policy focus that “Trump and his allies” have placed on America’s “petty crime and homelessness” is a manufactured crisis. According to the author, Thomas Edsall, “Donald Trump and his Republican allies are reviving law-and-order themes similar to those used effectively by Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew in the late 1960s and early 1970s to demonize racial minorities.”

Edsall goes on to accuse Trump and fellow Republicans of attempting to discredit “liberalized law enforcement initiatives” that, for example, decriminalize vagrancy and eliminate cash bail. In his lengthy column, Edsall attempts to paint any objection to progressive criminal reforms as pure political demagoguery and veiled racism. He writes, “Many of the crimes progressive prosecutors are declining to press charges on are linked to homelessness, vagrancy, drug possession, disorderly conduct, breaking into vacant property, and so forth — which, from a strategic point of view, enables Trump and his allies to link homelessness with progressive Democratic law enforcement policies.”

Being an academic as well as a journalist, however, to buttress his arguments Edsall deployed quotes from Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe, who theorizes that people whose neighborhoods and work environments are being disrupted if not destroyed by homeless encampments only have “second order” rights to be upset. In Tribe’s own words, “One needn’t be a libertarian to recognize that there is a difference in kind between someone’s genuine right to be free of another’s physical intrusion or displacement and someone’s ersatz right to be free of another’s merely offending or upsetting behavior or circumstances.”

It’s generally a sign of a weak argument when something that is a plain and obvious disaster, which must be fixed, urgently, is allowed to flourish because of constitutional theories and scientific studies. Anyone whose spent any time in a courtroom, or been involved in a funded study, knows that money often pays for whatever theory fulfills the objectives of the moneyed. Without common sense, all the verbal gymnastics on earth will not find the truth.

Finding the truth requires, along with common sense, an absence of bias, or at least a sincere effort to eliminate bias. Thomas Edsall would have a hard time making that claim. In addition to his 1/08 column attempting to paint Trump’s objection to homeless lawlessness as racist demagoguery, this is an author whose most recent weekly columns include accusing Trump of an “assault on transgender rights to put Democrats in a bind” (12/18), Trump’s “gift for tearing us apart” (12/11), and the “toxic mess” of Trump’s military pardons (12/04). No bias there.

Perhaps surprisingly, it was in the comments where common sense could be found. A progressive Democrat living in Portland offered a vivid rebuttal to Edsall’s trotting out of the “second order rights” theory:

“I am a progressive Democrat. But I also live in a city, Portland, OR, plagued by homelessness. I do not want homelessness to be criminal, but I also want to remove homeless camps and tents from my city’s sidewalks, fields, under bridges or overpasses. Why do Democrats feel that a citizen’s objections to a homeless person camping, defecating, or urinating near their home, business, or sidewalk along which they (or their children) walk is a second-order right? The objection is far greater than a distaste for the appearance of the homeless or their camps. It is also an objection to things that impact them directly, and thus are first-order rights. For example, Portland’s waterfront is plagued by the smell of urine under bridges, large number of rats (they come out at night), danger from discarded drug paraphernalia, and threatening nature of many homeless people. Is a citizen’s fear and unease of walking by large numbers of people sleeping in filthy towels, sleeping bags and tents not a first-order right? Is a business owners objections to having a homeless person sleeping outside her store not a first-order right? Don’t neighbors of a homeless camp have a first-order right to be safe, live without fear, or worry their children will play with a discarded syringe?”

Another comment, from someone who worked in New York City, had this to say:

“As anyone who lived or regularly visited New York City in the early 1990s will attest, ‘Broken Windows’ worked brilliantly. Crime and disorder fell precipitously virtually overnight, and for the first time in decades, the city felt safe. It worked so so well that most of the rest of the country quickly followed suit with similar results. It is the rare social science theory that actually worked. While I’m sure the approach can and should be tweaked, refined, rethought, etc., abandoning it wholesale is folly. Do people really want more disorder? How is that good for anyone and how will it not lead to more crime? Most people, regardless of political affiliation, will not be willing to tolerate more disorder in the name of social justice.”

These comments say everything that needs to be said in response to accusations from Trump bashing progressives such as Thomas Edsall, who want us to think homelessness and crime are problems we just have to live with until we’ve created equality and social justice for all.

The Obligations of Compassion

Beyond constitutional theorizing and scientific studies, which can be posturing rationalizations as often as they are valid, is the moral value of compassion. That value is priceless. But common sense requires tempering the value of compassion with a common sense recognition of human nature. Compassion comes with obligations. Compassion is one of several moral virtues that need to inform common sense solutions to public policy challenges.

For example, according to Jonathan Haidt, a professor of social psychology at the University of Virginia, there are six universal moral foundations. These virtues (and their opposites) are: Care/harm, Fairness/cheating, Loyalty/betrayal, Authority/subversion, Sanctity/degradation, and Liberty/oppression. Progressives like Thomas Edsall apparently place the virtue of compassion above all others. But true compassion cannot do good unless it is balanced with fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty.

Is it fair to anyone, much less sanctified, to permit people to defecate on public sidewalks? Is it compassionate to allow people to stagger about a busy shopping district, stupefied on heroin? Is giving them the liberty to do this a first order right, while wishing to avoid seeing your child step on a discarded, infectious needle a second order right? Did “broken windows” policing clean up New York City, or didn’t it?

The “new breed of Democratic prosecutors” that Edsall speaks of so approvingly, are part of the problem, not the solution. They have placed a very selective compassion in front of common sense. It is true that somehow, Americans need to figure out how to reduce how many people are incarcerated. But the obligations of common sense compassion require policymakers to accept unpleasant realities: When you downgrade crimes you encourage more crime. When you decriminalize possession and personal use of hard drugs, you encourage more drug addiction. When you provide benefits and services to homeless people, you encourage more homelessness.

These realities don’t mean we shouldn’t have compassion for people who are homeless or coping with drug addiction, or even those who have turned to a life of crime. But creating incentives for people to be homeless, or drug addicts, or criminals is a recipe for a failed state.

A return to broken windows policing, in the broadest sense of that term, would have a deterrent effect. The crime and drug use and homelessness that remained would be manageable, especially if the power of the Homeless Industrial Complex is broken and instead of building half-million dollar apartments in the most expensive parts of our cities, they could construct tents in more affordable areas.

Compassion has become so corrupted by progressives and the special interests who benefit from disorder and misery that the policies enacted in its name have made the problem worse. How is it compassionate, when supposedly compassionate policies lead to more victims; more homeless, more drug addicts, more criminals?

Compassion, properly tempered with common sense, and properly balanced with the other fundamental moral values, may seem harsh, but the results are what matters, not the rhetoric.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Black Conservatives in America

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Mainstream liberal Democrats and their allies in the media have made clear that “demographics is destiny,” and that destiny favors Democrats. It’s easy enough to see why they believe this: nonwhites constituted 15 percent of the population in 1960, by 2050 that will have risen to 53 percent, and nonwhites vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.

The answer mainstream conservatives have to this challenge is to try harder. Convince nonwhites to vote for conservative candidates, even if that means giving up all the entitlements that Democrats have used for decades to purchase votes and create dependency. It’s a tough sell.

Not-so-mainstream conservatives are as likely to give up as to try harder. Consider this comment made in rebuttal to a recent article “Race and Realignment in the Anglosphere” which had made the case for trying harder:

“More pandering, compromise and continual hope that the invaders, who are relentlessly beating us politically, will suddenly draw back and change orientations is foolish. It is just more of the same old “conservative” born-to-lose mentality, no matter how nicely presented. We already know the result of the experiment you suggest, we lose everything, America becomes Brazil, and the multi-generational white majority, ‘Americans’ as we think of ourselves, we will become a minority, in our only nation. And a targeted and hated one, at that… Let’s start seriously talking about the separation.”

The problem with this comment, however well argued, is that it argues for something even more impossible. There will be no CalExit, there will be no sovereign American Redoubt, there will be no independent Atzlan. Because other than via a cataclysmic collapse that nobody should wish for, the United States is not going to split up. And even if separation is Plan B, shouldn’t Plan A – a massive nationalist political realignment – first be given a fighting chance?

So we’re back to trying harder to persuade. And the game is different this time. Different from the days of Bush, Romney, and McCain. The game is different because Donald Trump has smashed down the door of political correctness, and because social media, however censored, offers a powerful new platform for dissidents, and because there are “nonwhites” out there who are all in for President Trump and the revolution he’s started.

Black Conservatives in America

The conversations that nationalist conservative Americans need to have is with the men and women of color who support the president, love this country, stand up for the 1st and 2nd amendments, want to reform entitlements, are offended by affirmative action and quotas, want to stop importing welfare recipients, want to stop exporting jobs, and have zero, zero, interest in being politically correct.

Four of America’s most interesting new black conservatives recently joined forces to deliver a one hour political discussion in support of President Trump’s actions in Iraq. Regardless of your position on Iraq in particular, or foreign policy in general, watch this video. Get to know these men. Ask yourself: Are these men genuine American patriots? Are these men equally frustrated by the destructive policies of liberal democrats? The answer will be obvious.

Hosted by Will Johnson on his Facebook page, also appearing on the video are Jay McCaney, Jermain Botsio, and, probably best known of the four but only known by his public name, Mind of Jamal. The discussion started with Mind of Jamal launching into a sarcastic takedown of his supposed obligation to employ politically correct terms. Anyone who still cringes when feeling like they have no choice but to say “people of color” will appreciate Mind of Jamal’s digressions on that topic.

Here is just a sampling of what is blistering, dead-on accurate conservative commentary:

“President Trump has tried to keep us out of war from day one.”

“The Democrats have not demonstrated anything to show they care about the American people. It is not parody to say that Democrats hate the American people. They hate Donald Trump because Donald Trump is standing in the way of them to hate America.”

“What have Democrats ever done for Chicago, Atlanta? If you think the Socialist Communist party is going to do anything to help America you are out of your mind.”

“With this last air strike, you would think the Democrats would be on our side, but they are showing solidarity for the Iranians. People have to understand that these Democrats don’t care about America and Americans, they only care about power and they want to foment division. You see ABC and CNN and the rest of these fake news acts crying over Soleimani.”

“President Trump is telling the truth as it is.”

“Democrats are pathetic. Whatever makes Iran feel good is what they want. You have news media fawning over this man who was a terrorist. The media is doing everything they can to cover for Obama’s failed policies. Obama is the reason why the Iranian’s ballistic missile programs got better, the reason they armed more terror and militia groups, it should never have happened but Obama released $1.5 billion dollars to Iran.”

After a brief discussion of Iran, the four went after Ilhan Omar, playing various clips of her public remarks:

“Instead of worrying about Iran she should be worried about her failed marriage to her brother. She is like a sleeper cell in America. She doesn’t care about Americans or America.

“She is being investigated for campaign fraud and illegal entry into the U.S. Ilhan Omar is the logical conclusion of where the Democrat party has come. They want to control free speech, they want you to think the way they want you to think and if not they’re going to make you pay.”

“Here’s the thing about Omar, if she was in some Muslim country she would have been stoned a long time ago. She hides behind her race, she hides behind her gender, and she hides behind her religion.”

“Notice you don’t see these radicals in any of the Islamic states. You don’t see a Christian feminist in Muslim countries, but we always see it in Western governments.

“We are dealing with people have 17th century thinking, whoever has the biggest dick rules the fort. They they think it’s funny what we do. We give them money, we give them aid, and what we get back is ‘Death to America’ so people need to understand we were already in this position whether Trump decided to retaliate or not.”

Anyone who doesn’t think that nonwhites can share exactly the same conservative values as whites needs to listen through this entire video. They will encounter humor and ribaldry, side by side with insights and arguments that are in close alignment with those of most staunch conservatives. If you could read a transcript instead of watching and listening, apart from the obvious self referential comments, you would not know the color of the participants. You might even wonder how they could say some of the “insensitive” things they’re saying, even as you’re applauding its accuracy.

And by the way, pick any four influential, black, liberal Americans – including Barack Obama, along with the usual war horses such as Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson – and put them on a debating panel on a neutral stage with these four fearless black conservatives. Put it on national television. Liberal lies would be destroyed by conservative truth, and to the black constituencies who vote Democrat, the liberal scam would finally be fully exposed and erased.

Which begs the question: Why aren’t more people hearing these men? Why aren’t they getting press? Why aren’t they going viral? Part of the reason is suppression by big tech. Mind of Jamal was kicked off of Twitter, and as usual, without explanation. “Twitter suspends accounts which violate the Twitter Rules.”

Encouraging the Black Conservative Movement

Along with speaking the unvarnished truth, these four black conservatives are bold and aggressive. They are not politically correct, they are not pandering to liberal sensitivities, they are stepping on toes. And this is what is different in this era. Conservatives aren’t afraid anymore. They aren’t pussy footing around like Mitt Romney, trying to see which way the wind blows, looking over their shoulders to see if they’ve offended their libertarian donors or the socialist reporters who write about them.

They don’t care what people think. And that makes them immensely attractive. This new breed of conservatives, especially when they come out of the black community, can be the vanguard of a movement to unite the right that will be truly color blind, and more powerful and unifying than anything this nation has ever seen.

When it comes to black conservatives, courage is not in short supply, only media coverage. Witness the remarks Candace Owens made at a U.S. House hearing on “white nationalism.” Owens condemns the Democrats for their unwarranted racist demagoguery and she condemns the media for their despicable double standards. Owens, along with a host of other black conservatives, are ongoing victims of liberal “anti-fascist” hate crimes, unreported by the media and ignored if not condoned by liberal Democrats.

There are black conservatives such as Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Ward Connerly and others who have fought for decades for conservative values. They are now joined by a rising group of young conservatives online who will push through and transform the black community. But they need the support of everyone on the right, because they’re not going to get it from anywhere else. Not Google, not Twitter or Facebook, not the mainstream media, nor the Democratic establishment or academia, nor the woke corporate multinationals who are terrified by resurgent nationalism in America.

Let this be a challenge to every member of the marginalized right and even the far right. You have reasons to be angry, you have cause to be bitter. The Left is trying to destroy your nation, your heritage, your way of life, and for decades they have logged one victory after another. But consider who your friends are.

To those whites on the right who have already been silenced or suppressed, but not before acquiring hundreds of thousands of online followers – Vincent James, Lana Lokteff, James Allsup, and many others – have a look at these black conservatives. They share your outrage, your insouciance, your courage, your integrity, your patriotism. Put aside pointless anger; find the best in each other. They are on your side. Talk to them. Make friends with them.

Imagine a nation where they not only join you and help you in the fight to take America back from the Left, but change the minds of their people.

Here are links to more black conservatives, showing how to find them:

Justin Wilson, Antonia Okafor, Candace Owens, Dr. Carol Swain, Chandler Crump, CJ Pearson, Anthony Brian Logan, David J Harris Jr., Lynnett Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson (Diamond and Silk), Jesse Lee Peterson, KingFace, Larry Elder, Mike Nificent, Allen West, Pastor Mark Burns, Patricia Dickson, Horace Cooper (Project 21), Shekinah Geist, Stacy Dash, Star Parker, Terrence K Williams, Taleed Brown, Keith Hodge and Kevin Hodge, Brandon Tatum, Will Johnson, Wayne Dupree, Jon Miller, Jamarcus Dove-Simmons, Derrick Blackman, Joy Villa, Mind of Jamal, Jermain Botsio, Jay McCaney.

Ideology is color blind. Patriotism is color blind. Faith is color blind. As Benjamin Franklin once said, we must hang together, or surely we shall hang separately.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Newsom’s 2020-21 Budget – A Big Pie, But Empty Calories

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Governor Newsom has unveiled his budget proposal for the fiscal year 2020-21, and it comes in at a whopping $222 billion. That’s up from $209 billion last year, and sharply up from a few years ago. Backing up a decade, the 2010-11 budget totaled $130 billion. What on earth could justify a 70 percent increase in spending in just ten years?

Shown below is the shocking growth in California’s state budget over the past forty years. The chart includes not only general fund spending, along with special funds and bonds, but also federal funds which are not included in the $222 billion total, but which are administered by the state and spent in California.

As can be seen, the growth hasn’t been uniformly up. There was a drop during the mild recession in the mid 1990s, another one in 2004-2005, and a plunge during the great recession that affected 2011 through 2014. But overall, spending growth over the past 40 years looks a bit like the proverbial hockey stick.

To have a fair discussion of spending growth in California, however, it is necessary to adjust for population growth and the impact of inflation. That is not a problem, since population data, CPI trends, and historical budgets are all easily found online. Back in 1977 California’s population was 21.9 million, and the CPI was 56.9. For the last five years, California’s population has hovered just under 40 million, growing by only a half million in that period of time, averaging barely 100,000 per year (ponder that fact, Gov. Newsom).

Shown below is per capita state government spending in California expressed in 2019 constant dollars. Viewing this information puts the current budget growth into context, and as can be seen, the trends are sharply upward, especially in the last two years.

Examining the categories of spending growth separately, all of the categories show huge increases. In constant 2019 dollars, per capita general fund spending has risen from $2,124 in 1976-77 to $3,650 in 2019-21. Special Funds spending has soared, from $418 per capita in 1976-77 to $1,507 in 2019-20. And Federal contributions to the state have also risen sharply, from $1,637 forty years ago to $2,669 today. In constant dollars, adjusted for inflation, per capita state spending in California has roughly doubled over the past forty years.

From this analysis, it should be obvious that California’s government has been spending more every year, a lot more, even after adjusting for population growth and the impact of inflation, and the trend has been nearly continuous for the last forty years. To suggest that Californians should pay more in taxes to support a near doubling in per capita government spending because Californians have more income today is so ridiculous that further analysis isn’t required. Just look around.

Compared to forty years ago, Californians cannot afford to purchase homes, they cannot afford to pay college tuition, they cannot drive on uncongested freeways, and they cannot expect their children to get a good education in public schools. Forty years ago, they could expect all those things.

There have been many improvements to our lives over the past forty years – the tech revolution and precision medicine, to state two obvious examples – but apart from cleaner air and less crime, the state can’t take much credit for improvements to the quality of life for Californians. The state can take credit, however, nearly exclusive credit, for making California unaffordable, for ruining California’s public schools, for driving up the cost of college tuition and neglecting our highways. And the state is fast losing all the gains that were made in fighting crime since the 1970s.

So while there are plenty of pet programs to assail in Newsom’s budget, and some trillion dollars in debt and unfunded liabilities that make mockery of the alleged surplus, the elephant in the room is to compare where we are to where we were. What happened? We spent more, much more, and life is harder, much harder. The workers are moving out, while the indigent pour in for the benefits and the super wealthy invest in security systems and beachfront property.

It’s important to ask where all this money goes. It’s important to make the obligatory pie charts and understand who gets what. But more important is why are we spending so much? What is the pie so much bigger today, yet provides less nourishment than ever?

This article originally appeared on the website California Globe.

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Environmentalists Caused Australia’s Fires, Not “Climate Change”

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“These greenies and the government don’t want to burn s— off. We’re going to lose all our houses and properties because of you useless pieces of garbage will not burn off when its supposed to, through the winter time like we used to do years ago out in the farms up in the mountains; burn all the undergrowth off so everything was safe. But you p—–, you want to have a really good look at this, look at the state you’ve caused here. You are the biggest bunch of useless loser pieces of garbage God ever had the misfortune to blow life into.”
– Australian resident of New South Wales, January 7, 2020

This is the reason for this year’s devastating wildfires in Australia. Environmentalist regulations prevented landowners from burning off dry brush. For decades, every year during the Australian winter, across the continent, brushfires were deliberately set to safely burn the undergrowth. Even in pre-colonial times, the aborigines set brushfires to prevent tinder from accumulating.

If you want to watch an authentic, eyewitness account of what really happened – quoted above – you’ll find it 2:56 minutes into “The Truth About the Australian Bushfires,” a video posted on January 7th by the inimitable Paul Joseph Watson. But watch out. Most of the profanity is edited out of the above transcription.

Profanity is appropriate, however, given the frustration that level headed people have to feel when they confront the fanatics who want to micromanage every aspect of our lives in the name of fighting climate change, and the corporate opportunists who stand behind them. In most cases, the political agenda pursued in the name of fighting climate change is an expensive nuisance. But this time, down under, it has quite literally flared into a devastating inferno.

Terrifying Pablum vs Data and Common Sense

Rather than identify the countless recent examples of the predictable, infantile, Thunbergian, agenda-driven fearmongering propaganda that has been spawned by this latest “climate” disaster in Australia, let’s examine what’s really happening. Thankfully, sources of useful information can still be found online.

A good place to start would be an article posted on January 3rd entitled “Smoke And Deception Blanket Australia: NASA GISS Fudges Data, Cooling Turns Into Warming,” on Pierre Gosselin’s skeptic website NoTricksZone. In the article, the authors present a fascinating set of graphics showing a century of temperature data from field stations across Australia. In every graph, the raw data is shown, then the “homogenized” data is shown. For the uninitiated, homogenization of temperature data is a statistical process used “to remove non-climatic factors so that the temporal variations in the adjusted data reflect only the variations due to climate processes.”

This sounds innocent enough, but have a look at these graphics, before and after homogenization. In every case, what appears to be a flat temperature trend is turned into a rising temperature trend. In every case. How can this be? Is it urban heat island effects, as cities grew up around the measuring stations? But if so, wouldn’t eliminating that factor cause the homogenized data to show lower temperatures than the raw data? Reading the comments that accompany that article will provide additional insights, but the point here is not to accuse the analysts who homogenize data of introducing bias into their work. The point is that the only data we ever see in official press summaries is the homogenized data, and that this data is often manipulated using methods that rely on arbitrary interpretations of multiple variables.

Another source of insight into what’s really causing Australia’s catastrophic wildfires this year can be found on the website Global Warming, authored by climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer. In his article posted January 8th, “Are Australia Bushfires Worsening from Human-Caused Climate Change?,” Spencer acknowledges a warming trend in Australia, along with a long-term upward trend in precipitation on the arid Australian continent. He concludes there is a slight correlation between climate conditions and increased risk of wildfires. But Spencer, along with everyone else paying honest attention to the disaster, blames the extreme intensity of the fires to “the increasing pressure by the public to reduce prescribed burns, clearing of dead vegetation, and cutting of fire breaks, which the public believes to have short term benefits to beauty and wildlife preservation, but results in long term consequences that are just the opposite and much worse.”

It is important to acknowledge another cause of wildfires in Australia, which is arson. As of January 7th, more than 180 arsonists have been arrested since the start of the brushfire season. But arson, just like faulty PG&E transmission lines in California, only starts the fires. It’s the buildup of tinder, thanks to misguided wildland management policies, that make these fires so devastating.

Environmentalist Rules Prevented Responsible Wildfire Prevention

What’s happening in Australia is preventable. The title of an article published on January 11th in The Spectator says it all, “Fight fire with fire: controlled burning could have protected Australia.” The author, Australian Tim Blair, writes “A kind of ecological fundamentalism has taken the place of common sense.”

Blair provides several examples of land owners and utilities in Australia who were fined by the government for clearing “safe space” around their homes and other structures, or for clearing firebreaks, or for setting controlled burns. The level of extremism has reached the point, where, according to Blair, you can’t even remove deadwood and fallen trees. These restrictions, aggressively enforced for over twenty years in Australia, are the reason these wildfires are now “superfires.”

Over the past few days, the debate over controlled burns has intensified, as can be seen by mainstream press publishing stories such as “Prescribed burning: what is it and will more reduce bushfire risks?,” Sydney Morning Herald, January 7th, “Would Controlled Burns Help Australia Manage Massive Wildfire?,” NPR, January 9th, and “Australia fires: Does controlled burning really work?,” BBC, January 9th.”

But at the same time, the spin merchants are out in full force, quoted in articles that suggest anyone who thinks environmentalist regulations caused tinder in Australia to get out of control are “conspiracy theorists.” For that perspective, turn to the Guardian’s January 4th article “Explainer: how effective is bushfire hazard reduction on Australia’s fires?,” where they argue that “claims of a Greens conspiracy to block hazard reduction have been rejected by bushfire experts.”

One of the more frustrating examples of green spin is the a recent opinion column in the New York Times. In a column entitled “Australia Is Burning: Hazard reduction is more complex than some would have you believe,” the New York Times has trotted out Australian bureaucrat, Cormac Farrell, who has made a career in “bush fire planning and design.” Farrell proudly describes the fire shelters he’s helped build along with designing “Asset Protection Zones” which are areas of thinned and cleared vegetation. He dismisses calls for more large tracts of the landscape to be regularly burned by quoting H.L. Mencken: “For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.”

Cormac Farrell is probably sincere in his views, and people like Farrell are useful to the propagandists at the New York Times. But his expertise, his informed expressions of the complexity of the problem, are examples of a greater problem, which is the paralysis that ensues when environmentalist regulations micromanage land management. Imagine the frustration that Australian landowners must have felt over the past few decades, when they wanted to burn off their land, just like their parents and grandparents had, just like the aborigines had before that, and they had to spend time and money on permit applications, and hire consultants (such as Mr. Farrell) to perform impact studies, and meanwhile the tinder accumulated?

This problem – regulatory micromanagement, and the anonymous faces of the innocent bureaucrats who can’t speed up the “process” (assuming they even want to) – can be extrapolated to every area of government overreach, from burning off brush in rural Australia to getting a building permit in California. But there is a special irony to see it happening in the context of the environment, the wildfires, and the climate “crisis,” because it is during a crisis that supposedly we do “whatever it takes, regardless of cost.” What it takes, in this case, is letting rural landowners clear firebreaks, create defensible space, and set controlled burns during the winter months. Repeal the environmentalist restrictions to what they were, say, fifty years ago, and let the work get done. Mistakes will be made, but conflagrations like the current one would never happen again.

That’s how a rational society survives a genuine crisis. But perhaps this conflagration is too convenient to ever try to prevent, insofar as it generates righteous Thunbergian green thunder across the world, solving nothing, but further empowering the bureaucrats.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Realignment and Race in the Anglosphere

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Two national elections, one decisive and the other a cliffhanger, have shaken the politics of the West to its core. In the United Kingdom, just last month, Conservative candidate Boris Johnson won a decisive victory for himself and his party. In the United States, barely three years ago, Republican candidate Donald Trump won the presidential election in a stunning upset where he narrowly lost the popular vote but logged a decisive victory in the electoral college.

The voters that supported these candidates represent a movement that has been building for several years but was not expected to result in a political realignment so disruptive and polarizing. Both candidates prevailed in the face of almost universal condemnation from the establishment media, the entertainment glitterati, most major political donors, and even members of their own party.

The reasons for their success are no secret, the only surprise was the level of support they were able to attract. To repeat what everyone acknowledges – whether or not they agree or disagree – Boris Johnson and Donald Trump owe their political success to a populist reassertion of national sovereignty. They represent renegotiating bad trade deals, reconsidering mass immigration, restructuring tax laws to discourage exporting jobs, repealing crippling regulations, and rethinking foreign policy to replace nation building with principled realism.

There’s much more to this picture, however, something harder to recognize, obscured by Johnson’s bombast and Trump’s bellicosity. While both of these politicians are channeling resurgent nationalism, they are also common sense centrists. While common sense and centrism isn’t how the typical critic of these men would characterize them, their lives and their policies provide ample evidence. Both of them have changed their party loyalties. Both of them are unwilling to engage in draconian budget cutting. Trump increased funding to the Veterans Administration. Johnson plans to invest more in the National Health Service. Both of them champion massive infrastructure investments. Both of them are pragmatists.

The politicians who oppose Trump and Johnson, on the other hand, are confirmed globalists. Their agenda prioritize values antithetical to nationalism. They tout the virtues of free trade, as if it’s a revelation that wool is cheaper in Scotland and wine is cheaper in France, and use it as the theoretical bludgeon to justify exporting millions of jobs to overseas sweatshops. They tout the virtues of integration and multiculturalism, but use it to treat their own people and their own culture as interchangeable with any other. They claim there is an urgent need to discontinue use of fossil fuel, nuclear energy, and even hydroelectric power, but collect obscene profits as the attendant regulations create barriers that only the biggest multinationals can navigate.

The rhetorical weapons of globalist politicians do not withstand close examination, but they don’t have to. It is enough to declare anyone who wants to stop exporting jobs and importing welfare recipients as an economic ignoramus and a racist. It is enough to declare anyone who wants to deregulate in order to restore affordability to homes and utility bills as a climate holocaust denier.

In all of this, there is only one question that matters: Can a nationalist centrist realignment hold? And in answer to that question, there is only one variable that matters: Will nonwhites start voting for authentic nationalist centrist candidates, or will they continue to be voting fodder for the globalists?

Shown below are four maps that graphically illustrate the current voting trends by race in the United States and the United Kingdom. The first one shows the United States distribution of votes by county in the 2016 presidential election, with the blue representing those counties that supported Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, and the red representing those counties that supported Donald Trump. The second one shows these same counties according to their concentrations of nonwhite residents.

As can be seen on this second map, below, the concentrations of nonwhites in the United States are depicted by a spectrum from very light green, which are counties that are 90 percent white, to deep purple, which are counties where over 50 percent of the residents are nonwhite. The correlation between these two maps is striking. On both maps there is a crescent running through the South from Northern Louisiana down through Alabama and Georgia and up into the Carolinas, where blacks voted overwhelmingly for Clinton. Similarly, on both maps there are concentrations of Hispanic voters supporting Clinton in a line starting on the Northern California coast and running south and east along the border all the way through to Gulf of Mexico. Washington DC, which is 90 percent black, and Miami Florida, which is majority Hispanic, went for Clinton, as did most urban centers where there are significant nonwhite populations.

The most recent data on voting patterns by ethnicity in the United States verify what is evident from these maps. According to Pew Research, in 2018 U.S. congressional races, 69 percent of Hispanics voted for Democratic candidates, as did 77 percent of Asians, and 90 percent of blacks. Only 44 percent of whites voted Democrat.

Before speculating on what this all means, it is instructive to view similar maps for the recent parliamentary elections in the United Kingdom, because the trend of nonwhite support for the globalist agenda is equally evident in that country. The visual evidence, in fact, is uncanny, despite needing to take into account several political parties instead of just two. As the map showing the distribution of votes by party, setting aside the regional parties in Scotland and Northern Ireland, there were three major parties vying for seats in Parliament. Two of them represented globalist interests; depicted in red, the Labour Party, and in orange, the Liberal Party. The sea of blue, on the other hand, depicts the seats won by Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party.

As can be seen on the next map, below, apart from significant swatches of Scotland, which voted Liberal because they want to keep the flow of North Sea Oil royalties unimpeded by any potential Brexit related obstacles, the globalist vote is concentrated in precisely the same places where nonwhites are concentrated. The areas where the Labour Party won include the metropolitan areas of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield in the English Midlands. Moving south, Labour was victorious in Birmingham, Nottingham and Leicester, along with, of course, nearly all of the area in and around London, where the population of the capital city is now over 50 percent nonwhite.

Data already compiled by the British Parliament confirms what these maps suggest. In the 2019 realignment, with four major parties to choose from (and parties other than these four garnered five percent of the overall vote), white voters preferred the Conservative Party over the Labour Party by a margin of 45 percent to 38 percent. Nonwhites, on the other hand, supported the Labour Party by an overwhelming 73 percent, with only 19 percent supporting the Conservatives.

What Does This All Mean?

The significance of this is already clear to anyone paying attention. In the United States as well as in the United Kingdom, there is a consensus among nonwhites in favor of loose immigration policies, generous welfare and entitlement programs, along with support for favored elements of the liberal agenda such as strict gun control legislation, and laws restricting free speech if it is deemed hateful or offensive. All of these political preferences, to the extent they have become policy, are threats to national sovereignty.

A partial solution for those concerned about retaining national sovereignty would be to restrict immigration. In America, President Trump has worked hard to reduce illegal immigration and he has called for merit based legal immigration which at least would reduce the percentage of immigrants dependent on taxpayers. But birthrate statistics by ethnicity indicate that the percentage of nonwhites in the United States (and the United Kingdom) will continue to increase even if immigration were stopped entirely.

With American realignment in favor of nationalism hanging by a thread, it isn’t enough to stop immigration, even if that were possible. It is also not likely, and probably not desirable, to succeed in polarizing the vote completely according to race, where, for example, 90 percent of whites supported a nationalist agenda, and 90 percent of nonwhites supported a globalist agenda. Such a campaign would inevitably drift further and further towards extremism.

The solution, if there is one, for nationalist centrists is to emphasize the centrism equally with the nationalism. This worked in the United Kingdom, where Boris Johnson was able to convince wary Labour Party voters that he not only did not intend to dismantle the National Health Service, he intended to invest in it. It will be interesting to see how he does that, because centrist solutions to America’s healthcare challenges do not involve a national health service. On the other hand, however, in February 2016, it was Trump, and only Trump among the other 16 libertarian beholden GOP candidates, who said in response to a question about alternatives to Obamacare, “I am not going to let people who need healthcare die on the streets.” Trump is a centrist.

Defining National Centrism

Centrism in 21st century America doesn’t have to rely on historical precedents. It can be defined in terms that many on the far left would consider to be far right, because what used to be moderate, mainstream political sentiments are now tainted by the Left as far right. For example, a politician might consider themselves to be a centrist even if they are in favor of gun rights, merit based immigration, free speech even when it is offensive or hateful, and endorse tariffs if that’s what it takes to enforce fair trade agreements.

Why shouldn’t endorsing development of fossil fuel and nuclear power as part of an “all of the above” energy policy be considered centrist? Why shouldn’t a centrist be willing to encourage publicly funded new roads and freeways so new suburbs can be built, leading to affordable home prices in precisely the same way as back in the 1950s and 1960s? Why wouldn’t a centrist be in favor of slowing down a bit, and not spreading panic over “climate change,” when, despite media hysteria to the contrary, the science does not suggest any sort of looming catastrophe?

And why, for that matter, should it not be centrist to support not a wealth tax, or a return to confiscatory tax rates, but at least closing the carried interest loophole that allows money managers to treat their commissions as capital gains? Who cares? Find one super wealthy political donor in America who is willing to put hundreds of millions into backing nationalist political candidates. Find one super wealthy political donor in America who puts any political agenda in front of their support for lower tax rates for the highest tax brackets, “free” trade, and open borders? Any?

Can National Centrism Attract Nonwhites?

It isn’t clear that a centrist agenda will attract nonwhites in the same proportions that it attracts white voters, but there is no alternative but to try. An encouraging fact is it will not take a seismic shift in nonwhite voting patterns to deliver elections to nationalist candidates in the future. If 20 percent of blacks vote for Trump in 2020, instead of the 10 percent who voted for him in 2016, he will be elected in a landslide. Similarly, if Trump attracts a third of Hispanic voters, instead of around the roughly 20 percent who supported him in 2016 (the percentages are disputed), he will be elected in a landslide.

Ultimately, nationalists who are concerned about changing demographics have to ask themselves tough questions. Do you believe that a community of sovereign nations is a better international model for the 21st century than the globalist vision, where corporations and supranational institutions run the world? Do you believe that the Western values of individualism, property rights and free speech are values that should appeal to everyone regardless of ethnicity? Do you think the emerging citizens of the world will eventually embrace a set of values that is very close to those pioneered by Western nations?

Nationalism, tempered by centrism, offers a political pathway towards a multi-ethnic future that should not be written off as an impossible sell until the sales pitch has been made.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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West Contra Costa School District Putting a Half-Billion Bond Before Voters in March

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One of the most financially mismanaged school districts in California has found a solution to their financial challenges – borrow more money, and let the voters pay more in property taxes.

Scheduled to appear on the March 2020 local ballot for voters living within the West Contra Costa Unified School District, Measure R, a “classroom modernization and safety update measure,” will seek approval to “issue $575 million of bonds, at legal rates, averaging $34.48 million annually while bonds are outstanding, at 6¢ per $100 assessed value, with strict citizens’ oversight, annual audits and all money for local schools.”

In case you’re wondering, school bond measures almost always pass. In 2018, for example, data compiled by CalTax indicates that over 90 percent of school bonds were approved by voters. A California Policy Center analysis conducted at the time estimated the total of these local school bond measures set California voters back another $15.5 billion. This sum is typical per election cycle, and doesn’t include statewide school bond measures, such as the $13 billion state bond for school construction planned for the 2020 California ballot.

That state bond proposal for $13 billion will “supplement” the billions, or possibly tens of billions, offered via hundreds of local school construction bonds proposals, set to appear on local ballots in March 2020, with more to come in November.

Not An Exemplary Candidate for More Construction Borrowing

West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD) faces declining enrollment, but to-date has been unwilling to close schools. Instead, last month the district denied the renewal application of John Henry Charter High School, despite a huge turnout at the hearing where impassioned parents, students, and former students begged the district to keep the school open. While acknowledging the “academic increases” achieved by the charter school, the board, as one of the members put it, would not support the charter school staying open due to the “financial impact charter schools have on the district” as it faces a 2020-21 projected deficit of roughly $48 million.

An excellent recent report on the financial travails of WCCUSD was published on December 10th in the local Richmond Standard. The report notes a 2019-20 deficit of $39.9 million, then quotes associate superintendent Tony Wold, as saying if they cut administrator positions, mostly assistant principals, they would save $37 million, which “won’t be nearly enough to solve the deficit.” But wouldn’t saving $37 million mean the deficit, at least for this year, would be reduced from $39.9 million to $2.9M? Wold also identified “non-salary expenditures” that could be cut, which suggests there might be a pathway out of the red.

Also mentioned as presenting a dire challenge to the solvency of WCCUSD are the “skyrocketing employee retirement costs,” which would include pensions as well as supplemental retirement health insurance benefits. You can say that again. In the Richmond Standard article, a table entitled “District Expenses Trends” shows projected “Employee Benefits” costs rising from $70.2 million in 2015-16 to $102.3 billion in 2019-20. Similarly, total salaries (“Certificated” and “Classified”) rose from $168.8 million in 2015-16 to $220.2 million in 2019-20.

In just four years, salary and benefit costs for WCCUSD have risen by $83 million, an increase of 35 percent. During that same period, the Consumer Price Index has jumped a mere 7.6 percent. Perhaps the WCCUSD board of supervisors should ask themselves why they’ve approved salary and benefit increases over the past four years at over five times the rate of inflation.

Are WCCUSD Teachers Overpaid or Underpaid?

Viewing data from Transparent California, you decide. Their administrators are certainly not underpaid, with the first 100 records – nearly all of them administrators, all reporting individuals who are earning total compensation of $150,000 per year or more. As for pensions, the average reported by Transparent California for WCCUSD retirees with 30 years of service is over $67,000 per year, not including supplemental insurance benefits.

You don’t think that’s a lot? If every Californian over the age of 60 collected a pension that big, it would cost $563 billion per year. And the maximum Social Security benefit, which requires a lifetime of high income and a retirement deferred till age 70, is only $45,480 per year. The top pensioner from WCCUSD is earning a pension of over $170,000 per year; 45 WCCUSD retirees earned a pension in 2018 that was over $100,000.

But few would suggest that good teachers, anywhere, are overpaid. So how well are WCCUSD teachers doing their jobs?

According to Ed Data, in 2017-18, the most recent year reporting, 65.6 percent of WCCUSD students did not meet basic state standards in English literacy, and 76.7 percent of WCCUSD students did not meet basic state standards in Mathematics numeracy.

It is in the face of this dismal performance that Contra Costa’s board of supervisors, instead of cutting non classroom personnel, or having an honest conversation with the employees about sharing the cost of benefits, are closing a charter school that had strong community support from the parents, students and alumni. But apparently that’s not the right community.

The War On Charter Schools

According to the group In the Public Interest (ITPI), working “in partnership with California’s West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD) staff, directly measured the financial impact of charter schools on students who attend the district’s traditional public schools.” This group concluded that “Charter schools cost WCCUSD $27.9 million during the 2016-17 school year.”

ITPI further recommended that “each California school district should produce an annual report assessing the economic impacts of charter school expansion on district students.” There are at least two huge problems with this recommendation. First, most school districts in California have overflowing classrooms, and since district revenue is based on student attendance, more students cramming into traditional public schools would mean more hiring and more construction, which does not solve the financial problem. And if classrooms are half empty, close schools and consolidate.

The financial problem facing California’s schools can only be solved by eliminating non classroom positions, requiring employees to pay more towards their benefits via payroll withholding, and empowering more charter schools, not fewer, since charter schools seem to be able to operate without budget deficits while turning in better overall educational outcomes.

Which brings us to the next flaw in ITPI’s recommendation. Along with better understanding of the allegedly negative financial impact that charter schools have on traditional public school districts, equal priority ought to be given to seeing how charter schools perform academically vs traditional public schools.

WCCUSD’s Incredibly Wasteful Construction Legacy

A lot could be said about how recent school construction bond proceeds were misused by WCCUSD. But again much of the problems at WCCUSD are mirrored throughout the state. As reported in the East Bay Times, after disagreements over how some of WCCUSD’s previous construction bond funds were applied, in 2016 the district board ousted Bill Fay, associate superintendent of operations. Fay was criticized for not staying within budgets, but in response he said “costs often exceeded original estimates because the scope would increase due to the district’s desire to give communities everything they want.”

Board President Charles Ramsey, on the other hand, said “This is driven by standards. It’s not driven by scope.”

Standards is an interesting concept that financial reformers – whether their concern is schools, market housing, affordable housing, or homeless shelters – need to examine closely. Standards, from CEQA and ADA compliance to renewables mandates, myriad set asides, and literally countless other regulations, are the reason everything costs more in California.

An anecdotal example of this might be WCCUSD’s $21 million athletic stadium planned for El Cerrito High School. First of all, didn’t they already have a stadium? What was wrong with that stadium? And what happened to the stadiums that alumni born before, say 1970, can clearly remember – the ones that consisted of bleachers constructed out of wood planks and metal scaffolding, positioned on either side of a running track of crushed granite, that surrounded a field of natural grass? Would that cost $27 million?

Of course not. And as for going back to these standards? Why not? Try to find a coach that prefers artificial turf to real grass. They’re few and far between. Try to find an honest study that proves that artificial turf creates a heat island requiring sprinklers, and uses a lot of toxic materials, that utterly negates its alleged environmental, water saving benefits. You won’t, because synthetic turf contractors pay for the studies.

Still, WCCUSD cannot explain all their prodigious spending away based on unavoidable “standards.” In 2015 a grand jury was convened in Contra Costa County to investigate allegations of inadequate oversight on WCCUSD’s construction bonds. The grand jury’s findings ought to make any taxpayer cringe, along with the parents and students in WCCUSD. Three of the most egregious findings were:

  • Property owners in WCCUSD pay 291 percent of the state average in school bond assessments on their property tax bills.
  • The cost per square foot of school construction is three times the state average.
  • Twenty-nine percent of the $1.1 billion (nearly $300 million) spent through June 2015 went for non-construction costs – program management and architect’s fees.

Imagine that, paying three times the state average per square foot for school construction. To get an idea of just how much potentially wasted money that equates to, consider this: The average cost per square foot nationally for school construction is between $211 (elementary schools) and $243 (middle schools). But the grand jury report referenced the “state average,” and when it comes to construction costs, California is anything but typical.

For example, earlier this year construction was completed on a new high school in Pinole Valley, part of WCCUSD. The facility encompassed 267,000 square feet and cost approximately $250 million. This is nearly $1,000 per square foot. Sure, there were demolition costs and costs for temporary structures included in that $250 million, but total project costs always include extras. The real question is why are these costs anywhere close to $1,000 per square foot? Why can’t California’s policymakers and judiciary figure out how to restore California’s construction costs closer to national averages?

Even the Mainstream Newspapers Oppose WCCUSD’s New Bond

California’s taxpayers have already spent billions and billions on construction projects that are hobbled with mandates and “standards” that have become an engine of legalized corruption. The padded, broken budgets that result are going to break the finances of Californians without ever solving anything. From homeless shelters and supportive housing to affordable housing to public schools, construction costs in California are out of control. It has become a scandal that even the historically quiescent media can no longer ignore.

The title of an editorial published on January 8th by the San Jose Mercury says it all, “Reject nearly broke Contra Costa school district’s deceitful plan to borrow more money for construction.” Subtitle: “Fiscally reckless Measure R bonds would drive up West County taxes, building costs to staggering $70,000 per student.”

The San Jose Mercury dedicated a generous amount of space to their editorial. At over 1,100 words and filled with facts, it goes into considerable depth describing both WCCUSD’s “jaw dropping” waste of school construction money over the years and the appallingly mismanaged district finances. Perhaps the fourth estate is waking up. Perhaps their belated embrace of numeracy will channel their innate but highly selective skepticism down new avenues. We may hope.

Meanwhile, what the mainstream press can also do – along with the board of supervisors of West Contra Costa Unified School District, along with every other school board, continuum of care office, housing authority, and planning commission in the state – is confront the byzantine gaggle of regulations that has made construction cost far more in California than it does pretty much anywhere else in the world.

The education establishment, and their watchdogs, might also end their war on charter schools, first by no longer pretending the recent “compromise” was anything less than a defeat for education reform. They might reopen a Vergara type case, so teachers would have to earn tenure instead of having granted after barely a year and a half of classroom observation, and so incompetent teachers could be fired, and so great teachers could be retained in a layoff. They might even stop thinking the notion of school vouchers, which would solve most of California’s educational challenges literally overnight, and save the next generation of K-12 students, is a political bridge too far.

We seem to be able to do anything, with no cost too great, whenever it’s “for the children,” except, of course, when it steps on the toes of the teachers union , the pension funds, or the underwriters.

This article originally appeared in the California Globe.

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Public Employee Strike Looms in Santa Clara County

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With 2020 upon us, it appears likely that two unions representing Santa Clara County employees will be going on strike. Unless agreements can be reached, 3,000 members of the Registered Nurses Professional Association will strike, along with over 11,000 members of the SEIU.

When one considers the political leanings of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, which tilt overwhelmingly pro-labor in one of the most liberal strongholds in the world, it seems inexplicable that negotiations have reached an impasse. Inexplicable, that is, until you review the financial situation confronting Santa Clara County.

To get started, have a look at the most recent publicly available consolidated balance sheet for Santa Clara County, showing the change in their assets and liabilities between their fiscal years ending 6/30/2017 and 6/30/2018.

As can be seen from this table (found on page 7 of Santa Clara County’s most recent CAFR), the county’s total assets increased by an impressive $891 million between 2017 and 2018. But the county’s total liabilities increased by an even more impressive $2.1 billion over the same period, nearly three times as much.

Digging in, it isn’t hard to see what happened. Santa Clara County’s finance department finally decided to accurately represent the size of their unfunded retirement obligations. They increased their net pension liability by $545 million, and they increased their OPEB (“other post employment benefits,” typically retirement health insurance coverage) liability by $1.0 billion.

Anyone whose dug around financials long enough knows that the balance sheet is where the bones are buried. Simply expressed, sooner or later, liabilities sitting on a balance sheet have to be paid. And in the case of Santa Clara County and other agencies up and down the state, it’s turning into sooner rather than later.

The reason for this is because CalPERS, adhering to long overdue new requirements from GASB (the government accounting standards board), has decided to require their participating agencies to pay down their unfunded pension liability within twenty years. Previously, as this liability crept relentlessly skyward, creative accounting allowed payments to be deferred. The result can best be described as analogous to those negative amortization mortgages that were popular right up until the real estate bubble blew up in 2009.

To see what all this means in terms of actual county expenditures, refer to the official “Public Agency Actuarial Valuation Reports” provided by CalPERS for Santa Clara County. These reports disclose how much CalPERS is going to require Santa Clara County to pay them over the next several years.

How Much is Santa Clara County Going to Pay CalPERS?

According to a recent CPC analysis which consolidates the CalPERS projections for all major employee groups (download here), during the current 2019-20 fiscal year, CalPERS is demanding $652 million from Santa Clara County. Of that $652 million, Santa Clara County employees, via payroll withholding, will contribute $145 million, or 22 percent. Put another way, for every five dollars that taxpayers send to CalPERS this year to fund Santa Clara County employee retirement pensions, those employees themselves will kick in just over one dollar.

It gets worse. By the 2025-26 fiscal year, CalPERS will require Santa Clara County to pay $904 million to keep their pensions afloat. And of that total contribution, county employees will themselves be required via payroll withholding to contribute $170 million, or 19 percent. The employer share will increase by $227 million, or 45 percent. By 2025, for every five dollars that taxpayers send to CalPERS to fund Santa Clara County employee retirement pensions, those employees themselves will kick in less than one dollar.

Santa Clara County’s board of supervisors is staring down an increase to their annual CalPERS payment that in a few short years will be nearly a quarter-billion dollars higher than it is today. And based on the recent billion dollar bump to the county’s OPEB liability, Santa Clara County payments to fund retiree health care are also set to dramatically increase. This is the implacable financial reality that is behind their tough negotiations with the unions.

How Much Are Santa Clara County Pensions?

The website Transparent California has a helpful summary search page “View pensions by last employer.” On this page, by selecting “View all CalPERS employers,” it is possible to view “average pension and benefit amount for full career retirees” for each employer. As can be seen, Santa Clara County employees who have worked for 30 years currently collect an average annual pension of $84,349, not including benefits such as employer subsidized retirement health insurance.

This is an astonishing sum, considering the maximum Social Security benefit – only paid for high wage earners once they’ve reached the age of 70 – is $45,480. For a 62 year old, which is a far more representative comparison, the maximum Social Security benefit is $27,180, less than one-third what the average Santa Clara County employee receives.

It is important to emphasize that using full-career pension averages is the only valid means of comparison to private sector retirement benefits. It is common to read statements from public sector union officials claiming the “average pension” is only $30,000 per year, or less. But they are including in these averages those recipients who only worked a few years, and barely vested their pensions. This is an inaccurate basis for comparison, because people who have only worked a few years in the public sector would presumably have spent their other working years in the private sector, earning social security and saving what they can in a 401K plan like the rest of us.

It is easy enough to review the actual individual pension data for Santa Clara County’s retirees. Here’s the link to Transparent California’s 2018 data. For each individual, it shows the amount of their pension, the year they retired, and their total years of service. Most people who view this data for the first time are amazed.

How Much Do Santa Clara County Employees Make?

Answering this requires understanding a few layers of assumptions. The most detailed primary source of data is the PublicPay.gov website managed by the California State Controller. On that website, Santa Clara County employees are shown for 2018 to average $92,069 in regular pay (plus overtime and other pay), along with $23,348 in employer payments for current and future benefits. That would mean that according to the State Controller, the average total compensation for a Santa Clara County employee was $115,417 in 2018.

This, however, is the low number, for two very significant reasons. First, as the state controller states, “employees who work partial year and/or part-time are counted as full time employees in the averages calculations.” This makes a big difference, as does the state controller’s other disclosure, “this county does not include payments toward the unfunded liability of the employer sponsored retirement plan.”

To get at Santa Clara County’s average for full-time employees with benefits, the raw data is available from the state controller on their “downloads” page. The 8.4 MB “2018 County Data” file includes detailed records for 22,159 Santa Clara County employees. In the CPC analysis that can be downloaded here, records for part-time employees were not included in the average. To do this, the records were screened to eliminate employees who were not collecting benefits, made less than $30,000 in base salary, or made less than the minimum specified base salary for their position.

These results are startlingly different from what the state controller reports. Instead of total pay averaging $92,069, and total benefits averaging $23,348, when screening out part-time and temporary workers, Santa Clara County employees average $118,220 in total pay, and $32,285 in total benefits. That’s an average total compensation of $150,505. But there’s more. What about the “payments toward the unfunded liability”?

Understanding this last element of total compensation underscores the inadequacy of pension reform to-date. Because of the $652 million that CalPERS will collect from Santa Clara County this year, $298 million will be to pay down the unfunded liability. That comes down to another $17,000 per each of Santa Clara County’s full-time-equivalent employees, an amount that’s rising every year. Of the $904 million coming due in 2025, $473 million will be to pay down the unfunded liability. Pension reform negotiations have never included any role for public employees themselves to pay down the unfunded liability, despite the fact that the benefits they receive depend on it being paid down.

Much more should be said about how CalPERS was, and is, understating the normal contribution in order to shield public sector workers from the true cost of their pensions. For a focused discussion on this topic, read “How Fraudulently Low ‘Normal Contributions’ Wreak Havoc on Civic Finances.”

If anyone is still reading this, there is yet another eye-glazing but nonetheless significant factor, the cost of OPEB (primarily retirement health insurance). For Santa Clara County’s public employees, this is an unfunded liability that is even bigger than the one for pensions. And this, too, must be prefunded and assessed as part of total compensation, if one is to accurately report on how much Santa Clara County employees are really making in pay and benefits.

To summarize, when taking into account the true cost of responsibly prefunding all of their retirement benefits, the average total compensation for Santa Clara County’s public employees, today, is already easily in excess of $170,000 per year.

What Are Reasonable Solutions to Santa Clara County’s Employee Disputes?

Jennifer Celaya, a Santa Clara County employee, wrote in support of a strike earlier this year in a guest column in the San Jose Spotlight. Here’s what she had to say about pensions: “One of the biggest public concerns is public employee pensions. Nevertheless, public employees are not the ones who lost hundreds of millions of dollars by making highly risky investments with public pension funds. The culprit is CalPERS, not the workers. An honest evaluation of CalPERS’ performance demonstrates poor judgement and insufficient returns. Some of those investment decisions have over the years led to serious loses, such as their ENRON and PG&E investments.”

Celaya is right. It is CalPERS fault. But the blame goes back further than their investment decisions of the past few years. It goes all the way back to Senate Bill 400, enacted in 1999, which increased pension benefit formulas by roughly 50 percent for California Highway Patrol officers. Over the next five years or so, nearly every state agency, city, and county in California followed suit, not only for their police and firefighters, but for all public employees regardless of their job description. The ongoing financial impact of this on civic budgets has been severe, and there is no end in sight.

One can easily make the case that CalPERS failed to disclose the costs of this historic bump in pension benefit formulas. But then again, before blaming CalPERS exclusively, it might be fair to take a look at who controls CalPERS. Of the 12 active CalPERS board members, only two of them have significant private sector experience. Most of them have spent their entire careers working for state and local government agencies in California. Only one of them has a CPA. Four of them have served as officials with public employee unions or union affiliated organizations, including SEIU, CSEA, and CPOA.

Overwhelmingly, the CalPERS board of directors consists of people who have spent their lives in the public sector, who themselves will collect public sector pensions. Only a few of them have the formal training and professional experience in finance and investments that would qualify them to govern the largest public employee pension fund in the United States. And it shows.

CalPERS has made plenty of mistakes. But they’ve worked in lockstep with public sector unions, who exercise strong influence on their board of directors. For decades, the shared agenda appears to have come down to three fundamentals: maximize benefit formulas, minimize required employee contributions via withholding, and minimize employer contributions by employing creative accounting. What did they think would happen?

Solutions to Santa Clara County’s current employee dispute would require the unions and the employees they represent to recognize some hard truths.

For starters they might understand the county is facing financial challenges that make it almost impossible for them to grant the demands the union is making. They might also recognize that apart from a highly visible cadre of super rich high tech entrepreneurs, nobody can afford to live in Santa Clara County. They might count their blessings to have such generous benefits, and realize that even if they start paying significantly more via payroll withholding to fund those benefits, they’re still getting a deal that is far better than what nearly everyone in the private sector can ever hope to expect.

For their part, the Santa Clara County supervisors might take a look at why the cost of living is so high in Santa Clara County, and everywhere else in the state. They could explore solutions that would involve less government instead of more government, starting with reducing the absurd, crippling restrictions and mandates governing market construction of housing. They could do that, instead of spending billions on “affordable housing” that their cronies somehow can’t seem to turn in at costs below $600,000 per unit.

The idea that Santa Clara County’s board of supervisors is unsympathetic to the grievances of their unions is absurd. They are probably one of the most pro-union, pro-labor, liberal, left-leaning board of supervisors in America. They simply have to convince the unions, and the workers they represent, that either they pay more for their benefits, or cut their benefits, or they should have no expectation of higher wages. Then they might turn their attention to identifying what part they’ve played in making life unaffordable for everyone living in the Santa Clara Valley, and consider new policies.

This article originally appeared in the California Globe.

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