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Friends of administration making serious bureaucratic bank at taxpayers' expense!By Nick, Section News
"Those who go from the House right into lobbying, that's a problem. But it was never the job of term limits to address that problem," says Greg Schmid, President of a group called Don't Touch Term Limits.
According to this morning's Detroit News, he's speaking specifically of $2 million lottery winner (literally), Democrat Barb Farrah. After being termed out at the end of calendar year 2008 she went to work as a lobbyist at the state's largest multi-client and for once, her former constituents are the lucky ones. Lobbyists get a bad rap. Wait, that sounds apologetic... let me rephrase. Lobbyists deserve to get a bad rap, BUT, they're a natural byproduct of our system of government and our constitutional right to freely associate with whoever we'd like. If there's an issue we want to see addressed as a group it only makes sense to pool our resources to better petition those in the halls of power. In that sense, I don't see the same problem that Schmind sees. Far worse, in my mind, is the way so many elected officials simply trade offices at the Capital, switching over their "Representative" ID tags for those of bureaucrats. Last month Leon drew everyone's attention to Ed Gaffney's recent gubernatorial appointment to the Liquor Control Board, a move that looks as close to a quid pro quo (he was one of less than a handful of GOPers to support the Democrats' $1.5 billion tax hike in 2007) as anything you're likely to see this decade. But Gaffney isn't the only one. Democrat Paul Condino was recently appointed by the Governor to the 10 member state parole board, an interesting decision since he A) gets a raise (this "public servant" is making nearly $82,000 a year!!!!!) and B) could be obsoleted should the Granholm-Cherry administration get their way and effectively eliminate the need for parole boards statewide. And no, none of the talk about reducing legislators' salaries includes so much as a mention about reducing those of bureaucrats and gubernatorial appointees. Funny thing about it is, if the Governor wanted to cut the pay of bureaucrats she'd have an easier time. There are (MANY) more of them, often times they make substantially more cake than elected officials and they have ZERO built-in taxpayer accountability (read: they never have to run for reelection). Read on...
The savings Granholm and her new task-forced buddy John Cherry could realize by slashing the salaries of these taxpayer funded government busy-bodies is low hanging fruit... but they don't talk about it and they won't because neither of them are serious about actually making tough choices.
The Lansing State Journal publishes an article this morning detailing just how difficult it is to actually cut lawmakers' salaries:
The issue could end up in court. But even if it doesn't, it's at least two years before any pay cuts would kick in...
A 2002 amendment to the constitution may let the Legislature only raise, not lower, salaries and expense allowances.
Voters passed the amendment in response to unpopular pay increases for state officials, including a $22,250 increase for legislators that raised their annual salary to $79,650, second highest in the country behind California. The predominant school of thought is that the State Officers' Compensation Commission could decide to trim salaries themselves, and that if the legislature agreed (they all say they do) then the salaries could be reduced... starting in 2011. Either way, savings are years off, at best. And in the meantime, Ed Gaffney and Paul Condino could choose to begin construction on their own Uncle Scrooge style cash-filled swimming pools with out so much as a word of protest from the Democrats who were elected, however foolishly, to right this state's economic and budgetary ship. So hey, good on Barb Farrah. She might have taken $2 million from the neediest of taxpayers at that Pistons' game last year but at least she did it in the light of day and without claims of nobler purposes. Somehow I doubt we'll be able to say the same when John Cherry releases his "cost-cutting" suggestions, ignoring the needs of those same taxpayers and going out of his way to protect his over-paid pals in the bureaucracy.
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Friends of administration making serious bureaucratic bank at taxpayers' expense! | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 hidden)
Friends of administration making serious bureaucratic bank at taxpayers' expense! | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 hidden)
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