Obama to boy: Where’s your birth certificate?

Obama to boy: Where’s your birth certificate?

Not every kid gets asked for his birth certificate by the president of the United States. But that's what happened to a Florida lad, Andre Wupperman, when he met Barack Obama at a Florida sports bar and family joint on Saturday.

Obama made an unannounced stop at Gators Dockside -- one of many surprise visits he makes to local businesses as a candidate for reelection -- and mingled with the patrons. Upon hearing that Andre, who turns seven next week, was born in Hawaii, the president asked: "You were born in Hawaii? You have a birth certificate?" The joke got laughs, according the pool reporter Helene Cooper of the New York Times.

And according to the Associated Press, Obama had greeted Andre with the "shaka" sign, a gesture often associated Hawaii.

The president also stopped at another table and led a group in singing "Happy Birthday" to Sorina Terrell.

These are all speaking 'in the moment' - if only Pictures could talk

City Retiree's Plan to sue Stockton

A group of Stockton retirees is seeking a restraining order against the bankrupt city's efforts to cut their health benefits, part of the city's "pendency plan" aimed at keeping it solvent while it seeks protections from creditors.

The city informed retirees by letter they must pay their premiums by July 30 or "medical coverage will be canceled retroactive to July 1."

Promises of lifelong health benefits have been blamed in part for Stockton's failure, which was also brought on by the housing bust, unemployment and borrowing for downtown development that did not bring expected results.

PHOTOS: California cities in bankruptcy

Dwane Milnes, who was Stockton's city manager from 1991 to 2001, has been widely criticized for giving retirees full retirement healthcare in return for agreements from unions not to seek raises. The unfunded liability for those benefits is $417 million.

Milnes now represents the retirees in bankruptcy-related negotiations.

"It is not unfair to make changes in the retirement plan," Milnes said. "The world changes and when the world changes you have to adapt. But the question is, how do you change it in a way that is respectful of those most in need?"

Plaintiff Alfred Seibel, 58, a retired parks worker, said he can't afford the premiums and can't afford to lose coverage.
With the city's cuts, Seibel's health insurance costs would be $1,126.66 per month, or about 51% of his net income.

"I am already taking generic meds for cholesterol and triglycerides against my doctor's advice, I can't afford the $70 co-pay. My wife cries all the time. She don't understand how when they promise you all this stuff, then they [can] just take it away," he said in court documents.

A retired parks caretaker who worked for the city for 31 years, Seibel also suffers from a work-related herniated disc and enlarged lymph nodes that doctors say are from chemicals he used on the job.

The suit seeks class-action status covering all retirees, but Milnes said he and other managers with higher incomes would be willing to give up their benefits.

"The ones we're talking about are the ones who worked for us for years. For crying out loud, we know them, we know their families. We know about their breast cancer, their husband's diabetes," he said.

The budget the Stockton City Council adopted slashed contributions to current employee and retiree health benefits and eliminated benefits for employees with fewer than 10 years of city service. It eliminates city-funded medical benefits for retirees by July 2013.

There are about 2,400 city retirees, about 1,000 of whom receive health benefits. Two-thirds of the city retirees do not meet poverty requirements for California's low-income healthcare program but cannot afford private insurance, Milnes said. Those who are over 65 can get Medicare, but they must pay for medications and doctor's office visits.

Stockton Vice Mayor Kathy Miller said the lawsuit was not unexpected.

"All I can say is that there is a group of retirees who think it's more important for the taxpayers to pay 100% of their retirement than to keep police officers on the street," she said. "They know the situation. They know 80% of our discretionary income is for public safety. There is no way we can close the budget gap without these cuts. But they think they should come first."

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CA: Pushing welfare recipients to work

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Gov. Jerry Brown wants to shift the safety net protecting California's most vulnerable residents pressured by a $16 billion budget deficit, the governor is proposing a major overhaul of the state's welfare-to-work program with the strategy of slashing people's benefits to motivate them to get jobs faster.

The move, if approved by the state Legislature as part of the 2012-13 budget package, would save $880 million, but beyond the savings, analysts say it represents a shift in the philosophy of how the Golden State helps its neediest residents.

"It's a reversal of the state's historic commitment to these families and children," said Scott Graves, senior policy analyst with the California Budget Project. "It's a very significant change."

California is the national leader in welfare recipients. About 3.8 percent of state residents were on welfare in 2010, the highest percentage in the country. In fact, California houses about a third of the nation's welfare recipients, while only housing one-eighth of the national population.

Most of the recipients, however, are children — more than three-quarters of the 1.5 million in the welfare-to-work program CalWORKs, which stands for California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids. The rest are mostly single mothers who must work or participate in job training and related activities to receive cash assistance.

The state has traditionally held a relatively generous attitude toward welfare. For instance, CalWORKs gives cash grants to children even when their parents are ineligible for benefits for various reasons, such as being illegal immigrants, receiving disability, or failing to abide by the program's rules. Only three other states — Indiana, Oregon and Arizona — have such an expansive policy.

California also allows parents to receive job services and cash grants for up to four years. Before last year, the limit was 60 months.

The policies have made the program an expensive budget line — the state spends $2.9 billion on CalWORKs and related programs — and an easy target for lawmakers looking for costs to trim with little political fallout. In years past, lawmakers have proposed doing away with benefits to children with ineligible parents and even slashing the whole CalWORKs program.

The state's budget woes have given renewed impetus to whittle away at CalWORKs. Last year, the maximum five-year benefit period shrunk to four years and monthly grants were diminished 8 percent. A family of three currently receives $638 a month, less than the rate in 1988.

For the next fiscal year, the governor is proposing more sweeping cutbacks, including a 27 percent cut in cash assistance to children with ineligible parents and further slashing the time limit for full benefits from four years to two years.

Other rule changes would restrict benefits to mothers of younger children and families earning poverty-level wages and increase sanctions on those who violate program terms.

"We felt the program was losing its focus of welfare-to-work," said Todd Bland, deputy director the state Department of Social Services' welfare-to-work division. "The reason we wanted to refocus is because of the very difficult budget environment."

The changes also come at a time when California is appealing federal penalties of $160 million because it failed to move enough welfare recipients to private sector jobs of at least 30 hours a week in 2008 and 2009, a requirement to receive federal money that helps pay for CalWORKs. Many California recipients are given part-time, publicly subsidized jobs so they get work experience.

CalWORKs recipients say getting a regular job that pays enough to support a family is not easy as lawmakers think.

Sarah Smith, a 31-year-old divorced mother of four in Los Angeles County, had been a stay-at-home mother since the age of 18, only working sporadically between having children. She was forced to turn to CalWORKs a year ago after her husband stopped paying child support. She received $850 a month in cash aid and $700 in food stamps.

She's also been able to make herself more marketable through the job services the program offers. She's beefed up her clerical skills, self-confidence and resume with a minimum-wage, temporary job as a customer service assistant with the county Department of Social Services, but the job ends this month.
She's hoping she now will be able to find a permanent job. If not, she will try for a subsidized job program where the county pays half her salary and the private employer pays the rest.

Policymakers don't realize that people need a chance to rebuild their lives, Smith said, adding that CalWORKs aid is far from enough to live on.
"It's still a juggling act," she said. "People are trying to get jobs. No one really wants to be on welfare. Most people are trying to get off it."

Nearly half of CalWORKs families move off the program within two years, but about 18 percent are long-term. Those families are often have very young children and headed by parents who lack a high school diploma or job skills, or have a family member with a disability, according to a report by the Public Policy Institute of California.

Brown's reforms aim to get parents off welfare before they become entrenched. The plan calls for parents to be hired or employable within two years of entering the program by providing job training and counseling, mental health, substance abuse and domestic violence support services, and child care. They must either work or participate in those activities to get the cash aid.

After two years, the services and some money would be cut off if they do not find a private sector job — a move that would affect about 130,000 parents, according to the state Legislative Analyst's Office.

Those parents could still receive a much-reduced cash benefit for child maintenance. A parent with two children would receive $375 a month, a drop of $263.

If parents do find employment, they could still be eligible to receive services such as child care for another two years and some cash aid if their income remains below a certain level.

Social service providers say it's overly optimistic to expect the private sector to absorb tens of thousands of people, many with minimal job skills, with California's unemployment rate the second highest in the nation at 10.9 percent in April. Only 11 percent of CalWORKs parents had private sector jobs of at least 30 hours week in 2009, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

"CalWORKs recipients are living on a shoestring as it is," said Frank Mecca, executive director of the County Welfare Directors Association of California. "This is going to plunge many children into poverty and likely increase homelessness. You're shredding the safety net at a time when it's needed most."

Republicans say it's about time California pushed harder to get people to self-sufficiency, and say more is needed. Halving the time limit is a good move, but continuing to give parents cash for children with no strings attached defeats the purpose of welfare-to-work.

"It removes the responsibility from the parent. You're taking away the accountability from the oversight of the program," said Assemblyman Brian Jones, R-Santee, vice chairman of the Assembly Human Services Committee.

Instead of focusing on half measures of welfare reform, the governor should concentrate on job-stimulation strategies so people have a place to go, he said. "If there's no regulatory reform, he's wasting his time," Jones said.

The debate over CalWORKs' mission is likely to continue, especially if state revenues continue to fall short, said Caroline Danielson, policy fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.

"The interest is in reorienting the program toward work," she said.

Contact the reporter http://twitter.com/ChristinaHoag.

Obama campaign chief slams Romney ‘hypocrisy’ on Harvard, out-of-touch attacks

With the presidential campaign in full "I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I" swing, President Barack Obama's re-election campaign manager Jim Messina on Monday accused Mitt Romney of "hypocrisy" for his attacks on the president as a member of a coddled, out-of-touch, Harvard-educated elite.

"I would brand it simply hypocrisy," Messina told reporters on a conference call. "Romney is also a Harvard graduate."

And Messina mocked Romney's attack as "a little difficult when he's shopping for car elevators" -- a knock on the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's plans to include one in a beachfront California home.

The Obama strategist's comments came on a call designed to promote legislation to implement the "Buffett Rule," a measure inspired by billionaire investor Warren Buffett's claim that he pays a lower effective tax rate than his secretary. The proposal, crafted by Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, aims to ensure that Americans making $1 million per year or more pay at least 30 percent of that income in taxes. The Senate will vote on the measure April 16 -- and it is expected to fail.

But that won't necessarily dull its edge as a political weapon to embarrass Romney, who has made a series of verbal campaign-trail gaffes seen as reinforcing the notion that his vast wealth has left him out of touch with average Americans.Romney, who opposes the legislation, is "the beneficiary of a broken tax system and he wants to keep it that way," said Messina. "Why should Mitt Romney pay a lower tax rate than average Americans?"

The former Massachusetts governor and multimillionaire investor recently released his 2010 and 2011 tax returns, which show he paid an effective tax rate of roughly 14 percent on income of more than $40 million.

"That's what this Buffett Rule fight is about," Messina said on the conference call.

With Obama set to make the case for the Buffett Rule at an event in Florida on Tuesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney disputed the notion that the president was targeting Romney, saying he supported the proposed tax change "long before it was evident who might emerge as the nominee for the other party."

"I think that we hope it will pass. I think that every senator who votes on it will have to examine for himself or herself whether or not they want to vote for a bill that says millionaires and billionaires should not pay taxes on their income at a lower rate than middle-class Americans, or vote against it. And they will have to explain to their constituents why they don't agree with that principle," said Carney. "That's what votes do -- they put senators on record."

Romney campaign communications director Gail Gitcho hit back at the White House, calling Obama "the first president in history to openly campaign for re-election on a platform of higher taxes."

"He has already raised taxes on millions of Americans, but he won't stop there. He wants to raise taxes on millions more by taxing small businesses and job creators. We appreciate the Obama campaign reinforcing Mitt Romney's platform of lowering tax rates across the board in order to jumpstart this bad Obama economy," she said in a statement.

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*Greg Pitsch Vows to Save Stockton

Alien Remains found in Peru

Peruvian anthropologist Renato Davila Riquelme has discovered the remains of an unidentified creature with a "triangle shaped" skull nearly as large as its 20-inch-tall body.

Has the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull --the setting for the underwhelming 2008 Indiana Jones vehicle--finally been discovered? Well, don't be expecting a victory lap from Steven Spielberg or George Lucas anytime soon.

The remains are most likely those of a child, though one with an unusually shaped head and frame. But that hasn't stopped local site RPP from interviewing several anonymous Spanish and Russian "scientists" claiming that the remains are actually those of an alien:

It has a non-human appearance because the head is triangular and big, almost the same size as the body. At first we believed it to be a child's body until Spanish and Russian doctors came and confirmed that, yes, it's an extraterrestrial being.

Of course, five anonymous scientific authorities citing proof of extraterrestrial life would probably be generating a little more attention if their research had passed some basic scrutiny. Even if the remains are almost certainly those of a person, they are certainly unusual. You can take a look at the gallery of photos here.

Ron Paul Ad: 'etch a sketch'

This election is not one to be toyed with!

Candidate: In this troubled city, inexperience a plus

By Scott Smith
Record Staff Writer
March 22, 2012 12:00 AM

STOCKTON - Gregory Pitsch has no political experience, but he believes his successes, failures and close calls as a small businessman make him a prime candidate to become the city's next mayor.

And, no, Pitsch, 26, said he's not too young to lead Stockton.

"Look at the experienced politicians, what they have done," he said. "If that's what experience gives you, we're better off with someone who's inexperienced."

Pitsch is among seven candidates seeking the city's top elected office in the most crowded mayoral race in years. The city faces staggering crime and teeters on the brink of bankruptcy.

Promoting small business and jobs is the key to turning around the city, said Pitsch, an online retailer who sells T-shirts and electronics. He also dreams of growing his small music-production company.

But running his fleeting storefront clothing business has given him a taste of how perilous it can be to work in downtown Stockton. In June last year, Pitsch said, four armed men robbed him.

One put a knife to his throat, while two others pressed pistols to his head and rib cage. They stole money he needed to pay his rent, but he was not physically hurt.

"We were trying to bring something new," he said. "It was a bad experience."

He now works from his home in Weston Ranch and makes most of his living by designing and producing screen-print T-shirts in the business that has succeeded through word-of-mouth sales, he said.

Pitsch said he has dreamed of entering politics since he was in grade school. Born in San Mateo, he graduated from East Union High School in Manteca and has attended San Joaquin Delta College.

He worked in construction until the economic downturn left him without a job. That's when Pitsch said his entrepreneurial spirit kicked in and he began launching his small businesses.

"I believe people should go after the career they want," he said. "You really can be whatever you want to be."

Pitsch has been married for more than a year to his wife, Brittany, an American Sign Language interpreter at an elementary school in Manteca.

Gregory Pitsch said the only mark on his record is a driving under the influence of marijuana case at age 19. Pitsch, a medical marijuana card holder, said he learned his lesson from that experience.

Contact reporter Scott Smith at (209) 546-8296 or ssmith@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/smithblog.


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House GOP unveils budget blueprint

WASHINGTON (AP) — Conservative Republicans controlling the House unveiled a budget blueprint Tuesday that combines slashing cuts to safety net programs for the poor with sharply lower tax rates in an election-year manifesto painting clear campaign differences with President Barack Obama.

The GOP plan released by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan would, if enacted into law, wrestle the deficit to a manageable size in short order, but only by cutting Medicaid, food stamps, Pell Grants and a host of other programs that Obama has promised to protect.

To deal with the influx of retiring Baby Boomers, the GOP budget reprises a controversial approach to overhauling Medicare that would switch the program — for those under 55 today — from a traditional "fee for service" framework in which the government pays doctor and hospital bills to a voucherlike "premium support" approach in which the government subsidizes purchases of health insurance.

Republicans say the new approach forces competition upon a wasteful health care system, lowering cost increases and giving senior more options. But Democratic opponents of the idea say the new system — designed by Ryan and liberal Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon — cuts costs too steeply and would provide the elderly with a steadily shrinking menu of options and higher out-of-pocket costs.

Even as Ryan was describing his plan to reporters, it became election-year fodder for both parties.

"The House budget once again fails the test of balance, fairness, and shared responsibility," White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in a written statement charging that the GOP proposal would dole out tax cuts to rich while protecting tax breaks for oil companies and hedge fund managers.

"What's worse is that all of these tax breaks would be paid for by undermining Medicare and the very things we need to grow our economy and the middle class — things like education, basic research, and new sources of energy," Pfeiffer said.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, predicted strong support for Ryan's budget. He also defended Ryan's proposal to cut agency spending below an amount that both parties agreed to in last year's compromise that extended the government's authority to borrow money.

"We all know that we've got a real fiscal problem here in Washington, and frankly we think we can do better," Boehner told reporters.

This year's GOP measure would produce deficit estimates that are significantly lower than a comparable measure passed by the House a year ago, claiming deficit cuts totaling $3.3 trillion — spending cuts of $5.3 trillion tempered by $2 trillion in lower taxes — below Obama over the coming decade. The deficit in 2015, for example, would drop to about $300 billion from $1.2 trillion for the current budget year. Last year's GOP draft called for a 2015 deficit more than $100 billion higher.

The measure would cut spending from $3.6 trillion this year to the $3.5 trillion range in 2013 and freeze it at that level for two more years.

The GOP plan doesn't have a chance of passing into law this year but stands in sharp contrast to the budget released by Obama last month, which relied on tax increases on the wealthy but mostly left alone key benefit programs like Medicare.

The resulting political battle is sure to spill beyond the Capital Beltway into the presidential race and contests for control of the House and Senate this fall. As if to underscore that reality, Ryan released a campaign-style video Monday evening telling viewers that "Americans have a choice to make" in a none-too-subtle appeal to voters.

"It's up to the people to demand from their government a better budget, a better plan, and a choice between two futures," Ryan said. "The question is: which future will we choose?"

Visit The Stockton Record's Website To finish reading the article

RON PAUL CAMPAIGN TO GOP: ADAPT OR DIE

I don’t agree with everything said in this story, but it does a pretty good job of putting the long term revolutionary aspects of Ron Paul’s campaign into proper context. As I’ve said before, when the 2012 elections are over, candidates like Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum will be nothing more than asterisks in the history books, while Ron Paul will remain the most important political figure of our era. Reports CBS News:

As Paul’s team will openly admit, his presidential run has doubled as an effort to advance the Libertarian movement. And on that measure, there are reasons to already view it as a success.

Start with the vote totals… Paul has consistently won more votes in the 2012 cycle than he did in his presidential run four years ago. In Ohio, he went from 49,027 votes in 2008 to 111,238 votes in 2012; in Michigan, he went from 54,434 votes four years ago to 115,712 votes in this cycle. He more than quadrupled his vote total South Carolina, tripled it in New Hampshire and doubled it in Georgia.

Throughout the campaign, Paul has attracted the sort of crowds that also-ran candidates rarely see, including the 4,600 people that turned out to see him in Champaign, Illinois, on Wednesday. Meanwhile, his passionate supporters have continued to pour money into his campaign, even as Paul’s odds of winning the nomination have gotten ever longer.

“It does seem like this is a real step forward within the Republican Party,” said John Samples, who directs the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank. Noting that Paul’s supporters tend to be younger and previously disengaged from the GOP, he added: “He’s reaching a new constituency, and he’s doing it in the context of a party that has concerns about the future…”

Jesse Benton, Paul’s campaign chairman, said he does see evidence that Paul’s ideas are making a difference.

“There is a big debate right now inside the Republican Party on getting out of Afghanistan,” said Benton. “Look at the monetary issue. You’ve got candidates across the country campaigning on sound money, the gold standard, auditing the Federal Reserve. You’ve got internet freedom – Republicans came together and they opposed SOPA.” Benton also pointed to GOP efforts to cut spending, though he said such efforts have not gone nearly far enough…

Benton stresses that the Paul campaign is not giving up on winning the nomination, though he concedes that Paul is not going to get the 1,144 delegates necessary to secure it before the GOP convention in August. He argues that if no candidate secures the nomination before August, Paul will ultimately triumph at the convention.

“A brokered convention is now our stated goal, and winning the nomination for Dr. Paul at said convention will require extensive politicking,” he said. “We plan to head to a Tampa with every political bullet we have loaded in our gun, ready for the convention fight…”

No matter what happens, Libertarians seem committed to moving the Republican Party toward their beliefs over the long term… Samples, of the Cato Institute, says Paul may ultimately be remembered as the man who moved the Republican party away from the George W. Bush model and into the future.

“There’s generational change going on here, and perhaps as time moves on you’ll see a different kind of Republican who’s closer to him,” he said. “And as you look back, you might say he kind of foreshadowed what happened.”

Benton’s message to the party, meanwhile, is simple: Adapt or die.

“The party’s at a crossroads,” he said. “They’re either going to start to embrace real limited constitutional government – and I think a lot of people are – or they’re really going to struggle nationally.”

“If they want to shrink this down into a little teeny tiny minority party,” he added. “They can keep catering to the neoconservatives.”

Oh Zee's Words of Wisdom: Quote of the Day

Oh Zee's Words of Wisdom: Quote of the Day: "Some days we need to get out on the towns, and release the Hounds!" - Vern Scott 2010

Ron Paul Is Really Way ahead, He has Won Maine

Is Rick Santorum The ‘Incredible Shrinking’ Candidate? (The Note)

Is Rick Santorum The ‘Incredible Shrinking’ Candidate? (The Note): By MICHAEL FALCONE (@michaelpfalcone) and AMY WALTER (@amyewalter) COLUMBUS, Ohio — Just when Rick Santorum needs to be expanding his lead in Super Tuesday states like Ohio, he seems to be heading in the opposite direction. A new poll out this morning in the Buckeye...

Stockton Going Broke Shows Cop Pay Rising as California Property Collapsed

By Alison Vekshin The bankruptcy that Stockton (3654MF), California, resisted for three years is now at its doorstep, spurred by the weight of retiree costs, the housing bust and accounting blunders that drained the city’s coffers.

Stockton, 80 miles (130 kilometers) east of San Francisco, rode the boom-and-bust cycle of the 2000s with a surge in new- home construction that attracted buyers seeking an affordable alternative to Bay Area real estate. Then a crash came, as homeowners faced a wave of foreclosures that sapped the city’s tax-revenue gains.

The city born in the gold rush has struggled for decades, relying on revenue from farming and shipping at its river port. Meanwhile it granted employees some of the state’s most generous benefits, and now has 94 retirees with pensions of at least $100,000 a year -- more than twice as many as some comparably- sized California cities. It has a history of ethnic tension and the notoriety of a 1989 schoolyard shooting in which five children were gunned down.

“We’re really struggling,” City Council member Dale Fritchen, 51, said by telephone Feb. 28. “There were horrible decisions made. City leaders spent money faster than it was coming in, thinking that the gravy train would never go away.”

This week, Stockton moved closer to bankruptcy with a City Council decision to preserve cash by defaulting on $2 million in bond payments. It also voted to begin a mediation process required under state law prior to seeking court protection. The city said its goal is to avoid bankruptcy. If it files, it would be the most populous U.S. city to do so.

Bankruptcy Code

From California to Rhode Island, cities are using the federal bankruptcy code to get out from under billions of dollars in obligations they can’t afford. Central Falls, Rhode Island, filed for protection in August after failing to win concessions from its unions. Jefferson County, Alabama, turned in the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history last November, with $4.2 billion in debt. Vallejo, California, sought Chapter 9 reorganization in 2008.

Stockton’s unemployment rate soared to 17.3 percent in 2010, the country’s sixth-highest, from 7 percent in 2000, according to the California Employment Development Department. The foreclosure rate in the Stockton metropolitan area was the second-highest in the U.S. last year, after Las Vegas, according to Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac Inc. Violent crime in the Stockton area was the eighth-highest rate in the nation in 2010, according to FBI data.

Gold Rush

Stockton was founded in 1849 as a supply center for people rushing to work in mining, a year after gold was discovered on the American River east of Sacramento. Early settlers flocked from eastern states and from Asia, Europe and Africa.

Later, shipbuilding became a major industry in Stockton, with its deep-water port on the San Joaquin River. Agriculture surged as the region supplied asparagus, cherries, tomatoes, walnuts and almonds.

In the 1990s, city officials doled out generous retirement health benefits without ensuring the city could afford the payments over time, City Manager Bob Deis said at a Feb. 24 news conference. A worker employed as little as a month could qualify for city-paid retirement health care for the retiree and his or her spouse for life, Deis said.

“It was not a Cadillac plan,” Vice Mayor Kathy Miller said in a telephone interview. “It’s a Lamborghini plan. No one in the private sector had anything like that.”

Among expenses the city can no longer afford is a $417 million unfunded retiree health-care liability.

‘Nobody Asked’

“The problem is, nobody asked the question: ‘How do you fund it?’ And consequently there was no money set aside to fund those commitments,” Deis said. “It was an unsound decision and it has similarities to a Ponzi scheme.” In the 2000s, as housing prices soared in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, buyers from San Jose to Oakland seeking affordable alternatives flocked to Stockton, where starter homes cost around $400,000. Single-family home construction, which had averaged 2,500 units a year from 1991 to 1997, tripled to 7,500 annually from 2003 and 2005, according to Robert Denk, senior economist at the Washington-based National Association of Home Builders.

The city’s population grew 20 percent in a decade, to 291,707 in 2010 from 243,771 in 2000, driven by a surge in Hispanics who identify themselves as Mexican, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. That ethnic group jumped 56 percent in the period, to 104,172 from 66,900, while the black population grew 30 percent and the Asian population rose 29 percent, Census figures show.

‘Boom Time’

“Money was just pouring into the city coffers for development fees and permits,” Miller said. “Property taxes were going through the roof. It was boom-time.”

Pay and benefit packages continued to swell. In 2005, the city completed a new ballpark and arena on the waterfront using bond funds. “There was an unspoken policy that to keep the unions from complaining about the amount of money being spent on projects, the easiest way to do that was to continue sweetening their compensation packages,” Miller said.

Among those measures were automatic salary increases regardless of whether the city had the revenue to support them. The contract with the fire union required the city to compare its pay with that of 16 cities including Huntington Beach, Anaheim and Torrance. Stockton firefighters’ salaries were required to rank fifth-highest, according to the city’s May 2011 emergency declaration document.

$100,000 Pensions

Stockton retirees also fared well. The 94 with pensions of more than $100,000 compares with 38 in Bakersfield, which has 347,000 residents, and 35 in Chula Vista, with a population of 244,000, according to data compiled from state pension records by the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, a Citrus Heights-based group that advocates pension reform.

An epidemic of foreclosures reached Stockton in 2007, as the recession left thousands of homeowners unable to afford their mortgages. Home construction collapsed and housing prices plummeted.

Revenue dwindled to an estimated $161.8 million in fiscal 2012 from $203.1 million in fiscal 2009. The city fired 25 percent of its workforce.

In Stockton’s San Joaquin County, assessed property values tumbled almost 11 percent in fiscal 2010, followed by 3.9 percent in 2011 and 4 percent in the current year, according to the county’s website.

‘Drastic Decisions’

“In the beginning, when this whole economic bubble burst, everyone had the attitude, ‘We’ll just avoid making drastic decisions and in a year or two things will be back to normal,’” Miller said.

The base pay for a Stockton police officer can be as much as $76,860, while a sergeant’s can reach $90,836, according to data provided by the city. In 2010, 87 percent of police officers got additional pay that added 8.7 percent for a canine handler, 4.3 percent for SWAT and 5 percent in “longevity pay” at six years of service. All are included in the calculation of retirement benefits.

“We are now the fifth-lowest paid police organization in the county where we handle the majority of the calls,” Kathryn Nance, a Stockton Police Officers’ Association board member, said in a telephone interview.

By 2009, city officials began considering bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy Protection

Fritchen, the council member, asked the city attorney’s office to lay out the pros and cons of bankruptcy protection at a budget committee meeting.

A year later, in May 2010, the city declared a fiscal emergency to deal with a $23 million deficit. The declaration allowed the city to make changes to existing labor contracts.

Crime escalated as the police force was reduced by about 27 percent to 324 sworn officers from 441, according to Pete Smith, a police spokesman. There were a record 58 homicides last year, most involving gang violence, Smith said.

“We’re losing our grip on some of the more troubled neighborhoods and don’t have the ability to police the city as proactively as we did,” Smith said.

In the spring of 2011, Deis met with about 15 police employees and budget officials to seek concessions from the union.

‘Breaking Our Contract’

“He said if we continue to fight on them breaking our contract, then he is going to push the reset button and go bankrupt and we will all lose,” Steve Leonesio, president of the police union, said in a telephone interview. The union is suing the city, challenging its authority to reduce benefits under the emergency declaration.

Last year, city officials uncovered bookkeeping errors requiring $15 million in budget cuts that “will have the effect of stripping Stockton’s cupboards bare,” Deis said.

The mistakes included double-counting of $500,000 in parking-ticket revenues and overstating the city’s available balance by an estimated $2.8 million.

On Feb. 24, Deis walked into a news conference at City Hall and announced that the errors and the recession represent “the knockout blow” for the city’s finances. He recommended the city invoke the state bankruptcy law. “We see no viable alternative,” he said.

Ron Paul Is being Cheated by his Own Party, this is Getting Bad!

This is Absurd... Ron Paul should help pass a law, in which we all have to record a video, holding our vote on a white paper, and repeating it through the whole 10 seconds. Make this post Viral, and help Ron Paul....

Great Quotes From Last Nights GOP Debate

RANKED TOP QUOTES

Ron Paul: "Planned Parenthood should get nothing"

Ron Paul: "The [birth control] pills can't be blamed for the immorality of our society"

Newt Gingrich: "I am inclined to believe dictators"

Mitt Romney: "You get to ask the questions you want, I get to give the answers I want"

Ron Paul: "Guns don't kill, criminals kill"

Rick Santorum: "Politics is a team sport folks!"

Rick Santorum: "America is Satan"

Santorum suggests Romney and Paul conspiring against him

Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney (Jae C. Hong/AP) By Chris Moody
MESA, Ariz. -- Have Ron Paul and Mitt Romney made some kind of secret alliance to boost Romney to the nomination? Rick Santorum is starting to think so.

After months on the campaign trail, Paul has largely chosen to focus his attacks on candidates not named Mitt Romney, most recently going after Santorum, the latest candidate to pose a challenge to Romney's candidacy. The idea that Ron Paul would spare Romney--while attacking candidates with arguably stronger conservative records than the former Massachusetts governor--has Santorum wondering.

"You'll have to ask Congressman Paul and Governor Romney what they've got going together," Santorum told reporters after the Republican presidential debate in Mesa, Arizona on Wednesday. "Their commercials look a lot alike and so do their attacks." The idea might not be so far fetched. The Washington Post earlier this month reported that the Romney and Paul camps--as different as they are--have forged a behind-the-scenes alliance. "Romney's aides are 'quietly in touch with Ron Paul,' according to a Republican adviser who is in contact with the Romney campaign," the Post's Amy Gardner reported.

Although Paul has certainly landed a few punches on Romney over the course of the campaign, his efforts against him pale in comparison to the ads and comments he has made about the other candidates.