Darrell Steinberg is a Liar
If you are a frequent visitor to this blog, you know that I’m not prone to hyperbole or name calling. So you can be sure I have good reason to title this post as I did.
Here’s a video of Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg speaking on the Senate Floor Monday night. He’s pretty pissed off that he hasn’t been able to get that one Republican vote that would raise our taxes by $14 billion. So, for the benefit of any news reporters that happen to be listening, he goes on a little tirade filled with half-truths and out-right lies. Now we’ve all come to expect a bit of “spin” when politicians open their mouths, but this particular set of distortions is particularly egregious since it’s simply scare tactics to ram the tax increase down our throats.
Ok – here’s the lies, transcribed directly from the video:
Steinberg’s lie -
“Tomorrow the Governor will issue an executive order and announce the layoff of 20,000 state workers. 20,000 hard working Californians, who will be victimized, through no fault of their own, because we have not completed our work.”
The Truth –
The Governor issued layoff “warnings” to 20,000 state workers who’s jobs are paid for from the General Fund. 20,000 warnings had to be sent out because, due to union rules, many of the jobs can’t actually be eliminated, so in order to cut 10,000 jobs, 20,000 notices have to be sent. Furthermore, many of the 10,000 jobs will be eliminated through attrition (retirement or not filling vacant positions) and many of the workers who’s jobs actually are cut, will simply be moved to other jobs funded by special revenue streams rather than through the General Fund. Few if any state workers will actually be laid off. But there’s even more to it. In order to eliminate any jobs, warnings have to be issued 6 months in advance, so even if some one does stand to lose their job, it won’t happen until July and by that time a new budget will have been passed and their jobs could again be funded. So the sending of the 20,000 warnings is pretty much just a formality and Darrell Steinberg knows it. He knows it’s not 20,000 workers and he knows that no one will be “victimized”. So when he said the Governor would announce the layoff of 20,000 state workers, that was a lie.
Steinberg’s lie -
“I will not allow anyone (Senators) to go home, to resume their lives, to have any kind of resumption of normal business as long as I know, and we all know, that on Wednesday morning 20,000 people are going to be laid off…”
The Truth –
Ok, you already know the truth, but since Steinberg repeated his bald faced lie, I figured it deserved a separate showing.
He also made some claims about thousands of workers in infrastructure jobs who would be thrown out of work on Wednesday as well, but since I can’t prove him to have lied about that yet, I’ll just wait till the end of the day and see what actually happens.
By the way, if you want to hear Republican Senator Hollingsworth’s reply which I reference in my previous post, it’s at the end of the clip, so watch the whole thing.
Darrell Steinberg Telling Lies on the Senate Floor
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by David Boaz or 
by David Bergland, both excellent books on libertarian thought.
