Posted on 07/25/2008 7:56:09 AM PDT by SmithL
We may not be getting effective governance from movie star-turned-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, but we can count on a steady diet of grandiose, and usually hollow, political gestures.
Who could forget, for instance, the time that Schwarzenegger posed with a gigantic faucet, out of which flowed a red liquid, to dramatize budget deficits? Or the time he denounced the Legislature as "girlie men" for delaying budget action?
Having promised and utterly failed to end "crazy deficit spending," Schwarzenegger is resorting once again to cheesy stunts, this time a threat to reduce the salaries of tens of thousands of state employees to the federal minimum wage, supposedly to hoard the state's dwindling cache of cash in the absence of a new state budget.
The governor is poised to issue an order to that effect – although his aides insist no final decision has been made – and when this was published Wednesday, it touched off a storm of protest from state workers and their unions, including a noisy demonstration at the Capitol on Thursday.
What the governor hopes to accomplish from this stunt is beyond obscure; it's opaque. He says he's doing it because the state has a "real and substantial risk" of running out of cash to pay its employees and bills, which is semi-true. There is a cash-flow crunch coming sometime next month or in September, but there's nothing to prevent using "revenue anticipation warrants" to borrow money, albeit at a hefty interest cost. It's certainly been done before.
State Controller John Chiang says there's enough money in the kitty to keep his check-writing machines working through September and that he would refuse to comply with the governor's order, which he says would put the state in "legal peril" because employees might not only claim back pay but be awarded
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Socialism and the cost of illegal immigration is catching up to California. Pay the employees on a credit card with astronomical interest rates? Why not just go to a bookie?
Just fire every state employee whose SS number ends with an even digit (or odd, or both).
That would fix the CA budget for years. And maybe even improve service.
Why punish workers’ only?
Cut off the stipends to the elected officials first and work their way down through heads of government with the workers the very last to suffer.
Socialism is catching up to California. I fail to see how their budget problems justifies the unilateral cutting of wages to employees ... including teachers, who are presumably under contract.
I think this may be the first time I’ve ever agreed with a union official.
H
Their lucky they are not treated as common criminals!
Have of the payroll is to retired government hacks being paid more not to work then working. The retirement benefits are astounding.
Have = Half
Sorry, fingers too close to keyboard.
I don't think it's obscure at all, and I suspect Walters knows very well what's going on. The very possibility of pay cuts will light the public employee unions and media on fire, creating a great collective whine. This will put pressure on Republicans in the Legislature to give in to the new taxes and other dodgy budget schemes proposed by Democrats.
It's the same as the ancient tactic of threatening to close state parks, close schools or cut fire and police services -- things average citizens want and expect -- to create political pressure for more deficit spending to buy votes. This governor is an unbelievable disaster for CA conservatives. He's totally cynical and has absolutely no guiding principles beyond his Kennedy-inspired drive to become President... by any means necessary.
A better idea, since the state workers have no say in what happens, would be to stop the paychecks of those morons who are at the center of the problem.
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