OUR STATE FINANCIAL TRAIN WRECK IS NEAR…
I AM ALIVE, JUST VERY busy after spending time at CPAC and then trying to establish Americans for Prosperity ( www.americansforprosperity.org – please sign up today ). I attended a meeting in Olympia today and the news is not good.
ON THE FINANCIAL FRONT, we are, as a state, on a path to disaster. Unfunded retiree health benefits are between $8 and $10 Billion ( that’s a B ); the budget defecit is $2.8 Billion; a lot of Federal money has disguised our true deficit the last two years, and that money may not be there in the future; our Insurance Commissioner has said that the Health Care Authority, the body which oversees state health care programs, has lost so much money, that if it were a private company, it would be ” subject to reeivership proceedings, potentially mandatory; and, our state pension fund is so underfunded, the State Actuary has said it could take 20 years to recover the investment losses in the fund alone. Oh, and the Legislature skipped payments to the fund for 2003-2005. The Legislature recently reduced their scheduled contributions due to decreased revenue flows due to the recession. The Actuary said that contributions by employees and employer ( us ) may have to triple for the next 12 years to balance everything.
THEN, THERE IS THE REST of the news. State tax revenues are declining as you all are spending less and more of you are unemployed. The numbers of people receiving unemployment are reaching record levels in some counties; the total number of unemployed statewide is 634, 411. Another indicator of how shaky the economy is: the number of foreclosed homes for sale in Snohomish and King counties is in the area of 12,000. Those homes will have to sell, at least a lot of them, before new construction will take off and lift the economy. This is not on the horizon.
AND, EVEN THOUGH THE SPENDERS are crying about cuts, the state will spend more money this year than last year, and is projected to spend more next year than this year. Will you? Actually, indirectly, you will, becaause the state can’t spend a dime it doesn’t get from you. And, all those shortfalls and underfunded pensions and the like, you are responsible for every penny. Not a pretty picture.
THERE IS SOME GOOD news out there. Newsweek magazine has an astonishing cover story this week on Iraq, headlined Victory At Last. It reports that something close to democracy is taking root in Iraq and mentions the stability and functional electoral system, as well as the growing economy. It will be hard for the Left to admit it, but Bush was right.
BTW, THERE WAS another Iraq story last week which got no coverage in the American press: the discovery of another mass grave in the Kurdish areas near Kirkuk. The bodies of 234 children, all under 16 were found. It was left over as part of Saddam’s campaign in the ’80s against the Kurds. Another vindication for W.
FORBES MAGAZINE RECENTLY studied the financial condition of the fifty states and guess what they found: ” Of the 10 states in the worse financial condition, eight are among a total of 23 defined by Gallup as ’solidly Democratic’, meaning the Democrats enjoy an advantage of 10 percentage points or greater in party affilaiation”. Suhprise, suhprise, suhprise. Oh, and the chairman of JP Morgan Chase has warned that California is a greater financial risk than Greece.
More later. I promise to be more faithful in posting, but CPAC and filling in on KTTH last week ( thank all of you who listened and thanks to David Boze, Michael Medved and the management of KTTH, particularly Rod Arquette ) and setting up AFP ( join today – www.americansforprosperity.org and if you really want to get involved, email me – kirbywilbur@hotmail.com ), I had little time for this. I will do better. Get involved, 2010 is shaping up to be a very important election, in fact I believe the most important since 1980. If you need ideas on how to be involved, let me know. We need to win in November, but it can’t be done without you. Get involved and say yes we can so on November 3, we wake up and say yes we did.
16 Responses to “OUR STATE FINANCIAL TRAIN WRECK IS NEAR…”
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Joe from Everett says:
Finally, withdrawal symptoms fading.
KIRBY’S BACK!
Where exactly is WA in the line-up behind CA?
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Ken Mortland says:
Please provide references for the $8-10 Billion retirement benefit unfunded liability and how one might access the Insurance Commissioner’s data and the State Actuary data.
You might be interested to know that a Washington state citizen, Patrick MacDonald of the Secretary of State’s Office, was a key figure in establishing the ballot system currently in use in Iraq. He served two tours with his Washington state National Guard Government Affairs unit.
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Steve Tracy says:
My daughter-in-law e-mailed this to me, have you heard this?
A Pastor with GUTS!
Thought you might enjoy this interesting prayer given in Kansas at the opening session of their Senate. It seems prayer still upsets some people.. When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:
Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask
your forgiveness and to seek your direction and
guidance. We know Your Word says, ‘Woe to those
who call evil good,’ but that is exactly what we
have done.We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed
our values.We have exploited the poor and called it
the lottery.We have rewarded laziness and called it
welfare..We have killed our unborn and called it
choice.We have shot abortionists and called it
justifiable.We have neglected to discipline our
children and called it building self esteem….We have abused power and called it
politics.We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions
and called it ambition.We have polluted the air with profanity and
pornography and called it freedom of expression.We have ridiculed the time-honored values
of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts
today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.
Amen!The response was immediate. A number of
legislators walked out during the prayer in
protest. In 6 short weeks, Central Christian
Church, where Rev. Wright is pastor, logged more than
5,000 phone calls with only 47 of those calls
responding negatively. The church is now receiving
international requests for copies of this prayer
from India , Africa and Korea .Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on
his radio program, ‘The Rest of the Story,’and
received a larger response to this program than any
other he has ever aired.With the Lord’s help, may this prayer sweep
over our nation and wholeheartedly become our
desire so that we again can be called ‘one nation
under God.’This Prayer need to be heard by every man woman and child in this nation and taken to heart. Just imagine what the outcome might be.
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I sent this under this particular comment because it seems appropriate to me that Our state legislature is in particular need of hearing it.
They have set about to pick the pockets and wallets of the citizens of the state of Washington clean with unbridled and irresponsible taxation and called it Fiscal responsibility.
They have set about to rob us of our liberties and choices and called it serving the people with care.
And I have the gall and temerity to stand up and yell HYPOCRISY, HYPOCRISY, HYPOCRISY.
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Connie says:
Unionized Government is unsustainable. Kennedy made a big mistake when he allowed the unions in.
It is time to toss Unions ot of government. Unions are doing to government what they did to GM and every other unionized company.
No wonder I had so much attention at the ‘Push Back’ Olympia Rally — One of my protest signs asked about the CAFR’s…
I printed out Washington States ‘Comprehensive Annual Financial Report’ and see ‘unfunded’ quite a bit.
If you know someone who KNOWS how to read these completely, I would be happy to hand the ‘pile’ over. These reports can be found on line. I understand every city, county, state, (our Port), Federal has these SECOND SET OF BOOKS where their assets are located.
What a mess….
It is time for ‘equal pain’. Private sector job loss = eequal or more govt job loss. Private sector loses their 401K and retirement package, so the govt employees need lose theirs SO WE CAN SAVE OUR COUNTRY.
UNSUSTAINABLE – like schools, there will NEVER be enough money. We need to privatize everything – or much – schools, booze, lotto, and everything else we can think of.
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Arthur says:
Hey, K ~ your first link is missing the ’s’ in Americans
(the 2nd one is ok)cheers!
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velta benson says:
I am a state employee retiree – with Medicare and pay $350 for my “supplement” for Uniform – state owned ‘ nonprofit” health provider…I paid full amount of $8000 a year before I turned 65 for my spouse and me. State does not provide health care to retirees – unless they do for Unionized workers like Fire fighters, teachers? but not old regulars such as me….
The Pers 1 is what I’m on and yes, I am waiting for Gregoire to tell us this has to go or get reduced. I AM counting on that. BUT again, when it was realized the State could not cover Pers 1 for long, they went to Pers 2 (which was seen as awrulf) and then to individual stock options or investment instruments, and so the state should not be needing to provide any “retirement” to folks who came after me…. Not sure what we are talking about here… Thank you. Velta Benson
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Martel Hermann says:
Did you hear that O’Bama is going fire local school officials for poor performances. Now, how is it that he thinks that HE can FIRE a local school Principal or Administrator?
He thinks he can do it because of the Federal dollars pumped into local schools! That’s how!
Slowly but surely we are all becoming SLAVES to left-wing, social-progressive, democrat government. -
Ben Dover says:
Thank-you for all you effort
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Rod Mandery says:
Both my wife and me worked for 30 years for a state pension. Now it seems that all of the years paying into it may evaporate in front of our eyes. When you say the state is headed for a disaster, I am unsure that the word “disaster” is strong enough? Catastrophe maybe?? Why has the legislature ignored the pension funds? Are the patients really running the asylum? Seems so.
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N/A says:
I am sure you have already gotten messages about this, however, I thought I would let you know that your link you posted for the “Americans For Prosperity” Website is incorrect and you might want to fix it. All it does is direct you to a 404 error page. You have the link name spelled correctly, but the web address you entered is missing the “s” in Americans. Just FYI.
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I forgot to mention that it is the link in the first paragraph that is incorrect, the other links are fine.
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Philip Morgan says:
I’m still with you Kirby, even though I have not blogged lately.
I got a call recently from the National Republican Party, and will probably get more as funding gets more serious.
Can you or anyone else tell me why I should give Michael Steel some of my dwindling funds after his backing of Dede Whatsherface in New York?God bless you and your hard work Kirby.
Phil Morgan
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Give your money to individual candidates or groups like Club for Growth or Americans for Prosperity that you agree with on the issues.
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Thanks for the advice Kirby.
Phil
Thank-you for your hard work at keeping us informed!