My Endorsement for San Diego Mayor

If you are a San Diego resident, I encourage you to vote for Kevin Faulconer for Mayor on February 11th. I’m supporting Kevin because he is a leader on the issue of public employee pension reform, which is one of the most pressing issues confronting San Diego and cities throughout the country.

Public employee unions pervert our politics because they enable government to become a constituency unto itself. The government employee unions advocate for an ever larger and more expensive government because this means more jobs, money, and power for themselves. At their worst, these agencies and their union allies actually sustain themselves by victimizing their fellow citizens. A recent Forbes article provides a good case study, where the Air Pollution Control District in San Louis Obispo (not a place with dirty air) awards its employees six figure salaries, yet faces a budget shortfall of approximately $300K. To meet its budget, the APCD is fining the citizens and business of San Louis Obispo and forcing others to pay additional fees for re-inspections and re-permitting.

Public employee unions aren’t always that predatory, but even the best ones enjoy a quid pro quo relationship with public officials that creates a destructive cycle for our cities. The unions usually steer their advocacy in favor of Democratic Party politicians, who become beholden to those unions because they frequently provide money and volunteers for their campaigns. Once elected, the Democratic politicians pay back the unions with richer benefit plans and compensation. Then when budget pressures hit, the Democrats inoculate the unions against cuts, forcing the city to instead raise taxes or reduce services. We see the unions engaging in just that type of pay to play politics in this race, where national labor organizations have already contributed more than $1.2M to the Democrat candidate.

We’ve seen where this destructive cycle leads us. For years Detroit’s politicians conspired with public employees, offering ever more generous wages and pensions in exchange for endorsements, campaign money, and precinct walkers. When those payoffs exceeded revenues, the city just cut services and raised taxes on its residents. This had predicable consequences, as fed up citizens began to leave the city the tax base collapsed. In 2013 Detroit’s dept reached $20 billion and it was forced to file for bankruptcy. The imagery of the once thriving community is striking, with an estimated 80 thousand abandoned homes within the city. Here in California we have seen similar results in cities like Stockton, where the city government, saddled with $147 million in unfunded pension liability, only escaped bankruptcy by slashing city services and raising its sales tax.

San Diego can’t go down that path. With the city struggling to overcome $2 billion in unfunded pension liability, we can’t afford to fall further into dept. Kevin Falconer is the right man to lead San Diego’s continued recovery.