A disturbing sidelight to the successive budget "crises" is the things you learn about where some of the money goes in that $43 billion monstrosity called the State of Michigan budget.

For example, the political class and its mainstream media adjunct are about to get all breathless about State Police layoffs that are reportedly under discussion. The MIRS newsletter says that 81 spanking-new state troopers fresh out of police academy will be eliminated, although the jobs might be "saved" if some 70 older cops are bribed with a pension boost to retire early, and presumably forego entering a "DROP" program.

What is a DROP program, you ask? It amounts to pension double dipping scheme:

Troopers start getting a portion of their pension while still working and simultaneously collecting their regular salary. The amount of pension they can collect is 30 percent the first year, 50 percent the second, and then increases 10 percent each year until eventually they are getting full pension and full pay before they have retired. The money is not paid out to them immediately but is deposited into an interest-bearing retirement account they get when they really retire.

That's nuts, of course. No sane private sector employer would give away such a benefit.

We offer one because legislators abandoned their fiduciary duty to be responsible stewards of the public fisc and gave away a huge pile of loot to a powerful public employee union.

The rationale under which that caper was foisted on taxpayers was that Michigan State Police are eligible to retire and collect their pensions after just 25 years of service with no minimum age. As a result it's not uncommon to have age 40-something men and women in the prime of life eligible to call it a career and head for the beaches, spending the last 35-40 years of their lives lounging at taxpayer expense.

Needless to say this causes potential staffing problems at the MSP. Rather than fix the problem in a rational and fiscally prudent way - establish a minimum age of say 55 or 65 before an individual can start collecting a pension - the political class gave away some boodle in the form of a goofy DROP program as an incentive to keep troopers working.

Pretty sweet deal, huh? Sweet for the troopers, but not for the taxpayers. And just one more example of why you should never believe a politician who says, "Our budget has been cut to the bone."