Help them out! List the first five non-essential programs and the first five non-essential services that should be cut, and show the cost savings that accrue from these cuts over the next two years.
Why doesn't the Oregon state government threaten to lay off six-figure salaried bureaucrats instead of threatening to close or cut back programs that would hurt the children, the elderly, and the poor?
Help them out! List the first 10 six-figure salaried bureacrats that should be laid off, and their positions. Show the total cost savings that would accrue from these layoffs over the next two years.
Probably because nobody would care if non-essential state services were cut or if fat cat state bureaucrats lost their jobs.
Or maybe because a) there aren't that many non-essential state services, b) the savings are negligible, and c) the "fat cat" state bureaucrats aren't that numerous, and they might be doing an important job.
But people listen when legislators make their emotional pleas about protecting the children, the elderly, and the poor as they beg for more tax money to waste.
I'm with the governor of Oregon on this one.
"Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D), who supports the tax increase, said he is not inclined to call a budget-juggling special session but to let the cuts take effect: "I'm trying to get the public to believe that when the government says something in fact will happen that, in fact, it will happen."
That's a good attitude.
How about I start with just one?
Hillsboro School District *borrowed* several million dollars from a bank to build a new state-of-the-art DISTRICT OFFICE for Administrators. Their new high school has an ELEVATED TRACK, not a ground-level one.
The Beaverton School Board gave pay raises with the property tax increase instead of using it on books and programs.
Since you think all of this is 'required' -- defend yourself.
I'm getting my data from the schoolteachers. Where are you getting yours from? The DNC?