Freedom Line Blog

From a story today in The Hill:

Four House Democrats who have proposed significant spending cuts were chastised at a recent caucus meeting for targeting programs senior appropriators had deemed vital, according to lawmakers and aides.

Reps. Gary Peters (Mich.), John Adler (N.J.), Jim Himes (Conn.) and Peter Welch (Vt.) introduced an amendment to the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development spending bill that would cut a dozen programs — totaling $1.4 billion — that had been added on top of President Obama’s initial budget request.

It was an effort to target a few government programs to chip away at a massive budget deficit — just as House leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), have ordered committee heads to do.

Read the full story here.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is calling for all city, county and state employee salaries to be posted online for easy access by citizens.  Ordinarily, such a request wouldn’t merit a mention in a governor’s speech, but these aren’t ordinary times.  With California being home to 10 of the 12 highest unemployed metropolitan areas in the country, this is not the era to be paying salaries that total a million dollars in less than a decade to individual public employees.

The fallout from the City of Bell paying its top two city administrators plus the police chief a combined $1.6 million a year led to resignations from all three.  If media and prosecutorial scrutiny grows to include other municipalities, the taxpaying public will have a much better idea whom to blame for a good chunk of the state’s budget deficit: corrupt public officials and public employee unions.