Our favorite bird-cage liner, the Whoregonian is mining its readers for ideas on how to cut the budget for the 2011-13 biennium. They posted a half-assed poll yesterday asking readers to vote for their top five choices for cuts or budget enhancements for the next Legislative session. Among the choices were diverting some portion of the gas tax to support state police, a 5% sales tax, ending the corporate kicker. But more significantly they had some delicious (not) ideas for state employees - across the board pay cuts of 10%, and eliminating the 6% pickup. When I checked yesterday, about 4000 people had voted and a large percentage of voters had listed the two anti-public employee cuts among their top 5 choices. Since the paper is not doing this for enlightened self-interest, they are undoubtedly going to hand off this poll to legislators and gubernatorial candidates to take to Salem to consider in the next legislative session.
This next legislative session promises to be brutal on public employees. Keep that in mind when you consider who to vote for in the upcoming general election.
2 comments:
Doesn't surprise me.
Every 2 years we are targets again.
I've been in public sector for 20 years we are always the problem, not poor government fiscal management.
Time to go while I can...
So what the poll shows is that the majority of those inputing to the paper favor a 16% off the top tax on public employees. To be fair, this 16% off the top tax should be applied to all Oregonians. This would at least solve the school funding problems.
Bob Lockerby
Post a Comment