-By Warner Todd Huston
A new transparency project has been launched in California that helps citizens learn just how much salary their government employees earn and the results are shocking. Hundreds of government workers make upwards to and more than $400,000 a year even as California drowns in taxes to pay for it all.
Over at Forbes, Mark Bucher reports of the new group Transparent California which has launched a new web portal where citizens can search out what public employees are earn in salary as well as what their pensions will be.
Some of these outrageous salaries will tend to choke you with rage.
“Consider Redwood City [population only 80,000],” Bucher writes, “where three fire captains and one firefighter made between $434,274 and $452,733 in total compensation in 2012. One police officer made $463,690 in total compensation. In all, nine employees made over $400,000 in total compensation with a total of 33, mostly police and fire department employees, making over $300,000 in total compensation in 2012.”
Using the portal, Bucher also found that “Thousands of firefighters made over $200,000 in salary and benefits in 2012, with hundreds taking home over $300,000.”
Listen, firefighting is an important, noble profession, but does anyone think a fireman should be allowed to bleed the citizens dry to the tune of $300,000 a year???
No one with any sense should, anyway.
Bucher has example after example of this outrageous highway robbery in is piece. Much of this is due to union meddling, naturally.
A similar effort was launched in Illinois last year by the group For The Good Of Illinois. Their effort is called Open The Books, a smart phone ap that will tell you the salaries of public officials in the Land Of Lincoln and many other states. The ap also gives info on federal spending.
Folks, this is the sort of outrage that is causing our states to raise taxes higher and higher even as they still go bankrupt due to unnecessary spending. We as voters must begin to put an end to the government gravy train.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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