rickyp wrote: This leaves state employees in Alabama, including teachers, in the closet. Really. Teachers in Alabama schools are afraid to come out, or even risk being thought of as gay, because they could be fired for it.

The odds of that happening are slim and none. Teachers in Alabama are unionize (NEA or AFT) not to mention the concept of tenure. Therefore, being able to fire them is between hard and next to impossible.

You have a very misguided understanding of what right to work means. It does not mean no unions what so ever and that you can be fired for any reason. Right to Work means that you can not be forced to join a union if you do not want to.

For example, my wife is a teacher in New Jersey which is not a right to work state. She is required to be a member of her local union. So much so that her dues are automatically taken out of her pay check. Now she can say she doesn't want to be a member of the union but they will still take 80% of the dues out of her pay check.

If NJ was a right to work state, my wife would be able to tell the local NJEA chapter that she did not want to be a member. If she did that, she would not have to pay dues but then she would not have any of the protections of the union. However, if she joined the Union, she would still have all of the protections of such.... as well as tenure.

The odds of that happening are slim and none. Teachers in Alabama are unionize (NEA or AFT) not to mention the concept of tenure. Therefore, being able to fire them is between hard and next to impossible.

Really? What if the union refuses to act on your behalf? Say, because you're gay?

Coming out for gays and lesbians has always been difficult. They feat that the knowledge will affect them in many ways and that includes employment. I don't think its possible to simply say, the discrimination doesn't exist, or that the minority dealing with the discrimination exagerates.
I don't know how true the followng is, perhaps its apocraphyl. (Its not documented) ..But do you have any examples of the Alabama teachers union leaping to the defence of a gay or lesbian teacher to protect their job to corroborate your position?

Teacher Fired for Being Gay in Alabama

A teacher, who kept her private life totally separate from her work life and who was loved by students and co-workers alike, one day, out of the blue, lost her dream job. After getting her degree to pursue her dream, this teacher ended up blacklisted and took work as a delivery driver to make ends meet. She reported feeling a loss of dignity - all her evaluations from the school were top notch but she lost her job anyway

The website this comes from claims that being gay is essentially grounds for termination in 28 states...


Read more at Suite101: Fired for Being Gay Legal in 28 States: Wrongful Termination Rules Don't Apply if Boss Not Ok With Gay Staff | Suite101.com http://lorah-delaney.suite101.com/fired ... z1ufZtIln2
http://lorah-delaney.suite101.com/fired ... es-a153800

It turns out that President Obama once bravely supported gay marriage, before becoming a cowardly bigot and opposing it (maybe that firebrand preacher, Rick Warren, forced him into changing), and then 4 years later regaining his courage. What a magnificent story of leadership! He bravely ordered VP Biden to confess his own perspective on Sunday, then had his spokesman say his position had not changed. He did all of that so he could humbly, yet courageously, declare his own personal support for gay marriage. Of course, it would be wrong for him to force his personal beliefs on a nation, so he's not going to foist them on us or do anything so insincere as to say marriage is a constitutional right.

I guess, in terms of "evolution," it's like a single-cell evolving into a man who then evolves into a single-cell . . . or maybe "evolving" is just a very peculiar process.

Still, Audie Murphy has nothing on President Obama.

rickyp wrote:Really? What if the union refuses to act on your behalf? Say, because you're gay?

Well then this isn't an issue of being a right to work state then is?

rickyp wrote:Coming out for gays and lesbians has always been difficult. They feat that the knowledge will affect them in many ways and that includes employment.

Oh and don't lecture to me about gays and coming out. How many gay people do you know. How many have you watched struggle with the issue.

My best friend who have known for almost 30 years is gay. He came out to me about 15 years ago. I watched people who were good friends decide they wanted nothing to do with him anymore (surprisingly it was the liberals amongst our group of friends while the conservative are still his friends). The man is 44 years old and still hasn't told his mom.

The Best Man in my wedding oldest son is gay. I watched his struggles as a teenager and early 20s as he came to terms with his sexuality and came out.

52% of the state expenditures go to education... How would you cut the spending to balance the budget without affecting the education budget? When an item makes up that large a percentage of the budget, its pretty hard to accomplish balance without affecting the item in question. So what exactly are you thinking is responsible for the "bloated govenrment"?
http://www.dof.ca.gov/budgeting/budget_faqs/#2

the sales and use tax rate in California is 7.25 % . Down from 8.25%.
the income tax rate is 9.8% and hasn't changed much over time....

Whats wrong if tax payers are reminded that they either pay for services or they don't get them? If the debate about taxes and expenses if all encompassing and means that tax payers are more fully informed about the true cost of each of the services they want....then whats wrong with that?
Many jurisdictions around the world pay higher taxes in order to receive services and they seem to make out pretty well.

rickyp wrote:the sales and use tax rate in California is 7.25 % . Down from 8.25%.
the income tax rate is 9.8% and hasn't changed much over time....

Whats wrong if tax payers are reminded that they either pay for services or they don't get them? If the debate about taxes and expenses if all encompassing and means that tax payers are more fully informed about the true cost of each of the services they want....then whats wrong with that?
Many jurisdictions around the world pay higher taxes in order to receive services and they seem to make out pretty well.

That shortfall, if I recall correctly, is about 12% of the total budget. That seems kind of nuts.

The actual sales tax is higher, depending on the city.

California is one of the few States to actually be losing population.

Answer: raise taxes!

Truth: it does not work.

Perhaps you are correct, RickyP? The electorate should be informed about what our money IS going for, and then let them vote on whether the expenditures would be made. We, as voters, should be allowed to have a say. Knowledge is power, and we should be voting for the people who would represent our views most accurately.

Example: State has voters elect group of representatives who say education should be paid by the parents of currently enrolled students. Law passes, electorate aware of impact, and 75% support law. Is this ok? It is with me. If I don't like it, I can move to another state.

Ricky:

52% of the state expenditures go to education.

Yes and no ... that includes pension and health care costs of teachers, administrators, and retirees of both. Some of that may make sense to attract good employees. Much of it is over the top from what I've read. Keep in mind that the teacher unions are negotiating with politicians who are often beholden to them from the last election.

Ray Jay wrote:Keep in mind that the teacher unions are negotiating with politicians who are often beholden to them from the last election.

This reminds me of a comment from the Christie/Corzine race. Corzine was speaking to a gathering of the public employee unions and said something along the lines of "I'll fight to make sure you get a fair contract." (mind you at the time NJ teachers paid nothing towards benefits or pension, could retire at 55 after 20 years of service with full pension & lifetime benefits and were averaging 6-8% raises a year when step increases were calculated in)

Christie's response was something like "It won't be much of a fight since he's the one sitting on the other side of the table from them."

archduke

The odds of that happening are slim and none. Teachers in Alabama are unionize (NEA or AFT) not to mention the concept of tenure. Therefore, being able to fire them is between hard and next to impossible

.
ricky

Really? What if the union refuses to act on your behalf? Say, because you're gay

?

archduke

Well then this isn't an issue of being a right to work state then is?

If they are being fired because they've come out, and the union isn't leaping to their defence, , .... its certainly a case where there is systemic discrimination. You claimed that the Union would leap to their defence? Or am I overstating your position? Do you know of any situations in Alabama where a gay or lesbian teacher was protected by the Alabama teachers union ?

I certainly wasn't lecturing you when I pointed to the difficulties in gays and lesbians coming out. (I don't know why you would take that personnally.) I'm confirming that if there are not protections in place then there is systemic discrimination. Or if the system in place to advocate for them (say the Alabama teachers union) chooses not to act, then also you have systemic discrimination. Until recently being gay and open in the military was an impossibility, which was systemic discrimination. Similarly, the recognition of marriage offers dozens of protections to heterosexual partners that aren't provided to gay partnership,s. Thats systemic discrimination.
Period.

ray

Yes and no ... that includes pension and health care costs of teachers, administrators, and retirees of both.

I understand that pensions were badly mishandled in a lot of places. Particularly, but not limited to, governments.
But surely when education is 52% of the budget, it didn't get that way just because of pensions?
How do you avoid the cost of health care, when employers are expected to provide insurance for employees? Thats part of the over arching debate about controlling health care costs... All thats happened here is that public sector employees health benefits are provided, similarly to most other insured Americans, through private companies that have not been able to control runaway health costs.
There has to be more to runaway costs then these two items... (If indeed it is ruaway costs. Maybe the expenditure makes sense. My post was targeted more at Ruffhaus's rant about "bullshit bloated governement". I was looking for examples that substitiate his rhetorical flourish.

There a lot of items within the California budget that are the result of unintended consequences or lousy planning. The costs of the 3 strikes law for instance? But its always instructive to learn what some people call bullshit bloat ...
Sometimes turns out to have an awful lot of value to other people.
Which is what an informed debate is about, not about "direct democracy", that bbauska is alluding to....ISn't that part of the problem in California? Plebescites that create untenable positions?

Randy, man, you write so angry in these posts. Scares me a little.

I've never read any of Obama's books, and none of us can know what is truly in his heart, but we can take a look at policies put in place, as you have, and judge them. I disagree with most of your characterizations, but I'll just list the two clearest examples of your not quite getting what a socialist would do.

Health care reform puts private, for-profit insurance companies at its heart. A socialist would have never done such a thing. Doctors would be government employees, earning a salary, treating people for little or nothing. That would be socialized medicine, not this messed up thing that was passed.

The Bush administration suspended all kinds of laws, completely screwed over private bondholders, and nationalized GM and Chrysler, which was perhaps the most socialist thing America has EVER done. Sucks to be you bondholders, we're just going to nationalize your asset without compensation. The gov't under Obama, however, sold Chrysler to a foreign corporation and then sold its majority stake in GM to the public in an IPO. I think you're conflating what Bush did (socialism) to what Obama did (capitalism). Obama would have just had to do nothing and he would have furthered the cause of socialism, but instead the gov't has been actively extracting itself from assets it obtained in 2008/09. In fact, the opposite of socialism.

You don't like him, I get it. He's too liberal: he wants gays to get married, he wants to make sure abortion is legal everywhere, he wants to make sure contraception is covered under private insurance. He panders to all kinds of causes. He hasn't shown leadership. But his administration has not been more socialist than Clinton or Reagan, and certainly less so than Bush II, and you and Steve, and Fox News damage the cause of conservatism every time you throw that word around. Seriously, how would have Eisenhower fared under your definition? Red, I think.

Direct Democracy? I said people vote for representatives that share their view.. A budget could not be created or managed from the people.

Your illusion of my allusion is false. ( love puns)

Direct Democracy? I said people vote for representatives that share their view

right.
sorry