[shrinkermd]

Michael Granof is a professor of accounting at the schools of business and public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

[goldstategop]

No private business can do that thanks to Sarbanes-Oxley. If our politicians had to abide by its requirements, they would all be carted off to prison. We're imposing huge costs upon our children because we don't want to sacrifice for them either by cutting back on popular programs or paying the bill for them.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[eclecticEel]

Our state controller (California) said yesterday that our budget situation isn’t as bad as made out to be. We will still be solvent all the way through October.

Yee-haw! That’s like a whole 3 months away, nothing to worry about here, I guess that whole $15 billion deficit wasn’t that big of a deal - I mean when you have an entire eternity-like 3 month period not to worry about it.

[calcowgirl]

Selling off prisons, highways, and schools is next-up in Arnold’s playbook (my prediction).

It’s payoff time for his big donors.

[mass55th]

Mario Cuomo was good at introducing bonds to apply band-aid fixes to the State budget. At one point, he even wanted to sell the Governor's Mansion to a not-for-profit group. How he thought he could do that without the approval of the people of New York State was beyond me. Fortunately it never happened. In 1990, during his last term as Governor, New York State was under another one of his austerity budgets. He introduced a $2 Billion Environmental Bond which was soundly defeated by the public at that fall's elections.

Cuomo was pi$$ed about it, and immediately started coming up with other options of wiping out the debt he had helped create. Besides raising fees on just about everything, and laying off many Civil Service employees, another option he chose was to lag (hold back) one week's pay of State workers. We would work 5 days without pay. The 5 days pay would be given to us upon our retirement or exit from State service. Of course you wouldn't get it if you dropped dead in the meantime. The main issue against this plan was that our salaries had already been lagged two weeks when we started our jobs. We had had to work a month before we even saw our first paycheck, and then it was only for 2 weeks.

Despite protests from the 3 unions, he did it anyway. PERB (Public Employee Relations Board) found he had overstepped his bounds and he was forced to pay us back that money. I doubt we got any interest on it for the time the State had it. Cuomo's popularity went down hill steadily after that, and of course he was beaten by Pataki in '94. I can see the same crap being tried again with Patterson. I'm just glad I'm retired now and the a-holes can't touch me. Well, hopefully they won't screw around with our pensions.

[HighlyOpinionated]

Here's a great way to save the USofA a lot of money!

A president's pension currently is $191,300 per year. Assuming the next president lives to age 80, Sen. McCain would receive ZERO pension as he would reach 80 at the end of two terms as president. Sen. Obama would be retired for 26 years after two terms and would receive $4,973,800 in pension.

Therefore it would certainly make economic sense to elect McCain in November.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

But if history is a guide, governors and legislators across the country will seek to avoid the difficult choices that are required. Instead, they will likely pass the costs of the services that we enjoy today on to our children and grandchildren, through creatively deceptive budgeting.

At the rate government unfunded entitlement and public employee (hack) pensions are growing, they won't wait for the grandchildren. They will start going after our private pension annuities and increase the death taxes.