My Friday afternoon two-hour drive from Venice back to Glendale was enlivened by John and Ken’s radio show. They were having a field day with Assembly representative Noreen Evans’ (D-Santa Rosa) comment that “living within your means is meaningless!” and urged listeners to “blog blast” her, which more than 200 of them did.
Evans’ Budget Blog update today briefly describes a Democratic budget proposal that will be submitted for a vote Wednesday. Along with cuts to programs, and $2.1 billion in “revenue acceleration and fees”, it includes $1 billion in new cigarette taxes and $880 million in oil severance taxes (whatever those are). Most comments on this post pick up John and Ken’s themes: Why hasn’t state government gotten the message that voters won’t accept more taxes? Further, why won’t legislators start renegotiating employment contracts that are far more generous than most private-sector packages? Excerpt from one comment:
…as long as public employees make more money on average, with more benefits than in the private sector, we have a reasonable expectation to ask them to make sacrifices first.
There’s nothing unreasonable about asking state employees to live in the same world as the rest of us, contributing some of our salary towards medical insurance and co-pays. There’s nothing unreasonable about asking state employees to live with the same retirement plans the rest of us have (401K plans, not pensions with 90% of our salary for life).
Here is Evans’ more detailed report on the proposal.