Posted on 10/05/2010 11:12:19 PM PDT by smokingfrog
State and local government budgets are by all accounts in dire straits. Last year, collectively, they faced a $100 billion budget shortfall. After 12 months of belt tightening, emergency aid, layoffs and tax hikes, things are even worse. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said in a report this year that the gap could be $140 billion. And last week, respected analyst Meredith Whitney suggested that state governments will collapse unless the federal government offers a trillion-dollar bailout that will rival the bank bailout of 2008.
And yet, across America, many government workers are getting rich off taxpayer-funded salaries. City managers get free luxury cars, firefighters get half-million-dollar lump payments and, in California, one city worker is being paid $500,000 annually during retirement. In New York state, $100,000 salaries can’t be called rich, but at a time when unemployment remains near 10 percent, there are 99,000 state and local workers bringing home six figure salaries.
Two weeks ago we published a survey of government workers with super-sized salaries and invited Red Tape Chronicles readers to do some digging. You weren’t shy. More than 1,000 tips came streaming in via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and this blog, and we researched each one. Here are the best – or worst -- examples you sent.
1. Phoenix – double-dipping top cop
(Excerpt) Read more at redtape.msnbc.com ...
Unbelievable that you can collect unemployment and a pension in California at the same time.
Even a worm will turn ... and the worm is turning.
The local level voters must become aware and outraged. This is a great example of keeping politics local so that the issues are in their face.
The issue being theft from the tax payers. When local that is stealing from your neighbors.
Pay your taxes, your hard working government needs the money. :)
One has to wonder why they are allowed to be compensated for a whole career of vacation and sick days and that is added as income in only the LAST crucial year of service. Despicable government creeps!
I like plan B.
Use it or lose it.
I had 37 years of government service, mostly civilian. As a civilian, I spent a lot of time in harm’s way in a lot of inhospitable places. I don’t have any qualms about accepting my annuity.
This crap goes on all over. Around ten years ago, one of our city’s offices had a cash bowl which was money from water bill payments. Employees were dipping into it as they pleased, to buy themselves lunch. A whistle blower filed suit against the city because of it, and won herself a six-figure settlement. Nobody got fired.
None of these creeps “earned” this much money. They took it.
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