Posted on 12/16/2002 9:44:52 AM PST by ElkGroveDan
A friend of mine was recounting his college frat house days not long ago, and his story told the tale of Californias current budget crisis better than I can.
My friend was a hasher in his frat house. Hasher was the name given to the members of the house who served food to the rest of the fraternity. Hashers got two benefits for doing this relatively menial task. First, they paid less for their food service (about one-third less, $100 instead of $150 paid by the rest of the fraternity members). Second, they got to eat first. They would arrive early, eat their meal, and then serve the rest of the fraternity.
It turned out this was a very good deal for the hashers. For anyone who knows anything about young men, food is a big deal (quantity, not quality), so getting to eat first, and eat until satisfied, is a major benefit for college men. Paying less for that privilege was just icing on the cake, and the work was not too difficult, even if it was menial. My friend thought that he had died and gone to heaven when he got this job.
So, he started telling his frat friends about this deal, and they all wanted the same job. They hit up the fraternity leadership to get more hashers, allegedly because there were just not enough of them to provide the service necessary for the frat house.
The leadership agreed, and so tripled the number of hashers. It didnt take long for the meals to come up short on food for the rest of the frat house, requiring the house leaders to increase the fee for food service. The hashers used the extra money to order expensive ice cream and other goodies. Then they ate all the best of it first, and left the mediocre stuff for the rest of the fraternity. A great deal for them, but very expensive for the rest of the members.
In addition, as the number of hashers increased, the less each of them had to work. Several of them took to showing up early, eating all the food they wanted, and then leaving, because there was no work to do. Since all the hashers were buddies, no hasher complained, and, in fact, these hashers tried to get even more of their friends on the payroll as hashers. Soon the fraternity saw more and more cost and less and less food for the money they paid for food service. The hashers insisted, however, that they were doing difficult, but important, work for the fraternity. My friend ultimately quit as a hasher because he was eating so much he was getting fat.
Sounds like government. It seems the more government we get, the more expensive it is and the less service we receive. But government workers insist their jobs are important and difficult, and that poor service is simply the result of too little money to hire enough people to give good service. The story never changes no matter how much money we give. State government hashers get fat, suck up our money, and wont admit that much of our problem is that we have too many of them California government to a T.
A $57 billion budget became a $77 billion budget in four short years, adding more than 43,000 new state employees to the payroll while the state lost 230,000 manufacturing jobs (actually, that many were lost in the last year alone). The hashers are eating first and their leftovers are dwindling.
Its time to dump some hashers.
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Well, there is this: If every state employee were imediately fired, there would still be a $6 billion shortfall over the next 12 months.
The fiscal irresponsibility of the Davis (mal-)administration is unequalled in America history.
BUMP
Whats happening in California is just a smaller version of what the Dems would do to the US. The only difference is that people can leave California and still live in America. I wonder what would life be like if there was nowhere else to go?
I always tell people at every opportunity that whats happening in California is what will happen to the rest of the States under a Democrat government.
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