Today, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette sided with Governor Schwarzenegger and taxpayers by ordering Controller John Chiang to implement the Governor’s furlough plan.  The Governor’s plan to require state workers to furlough two days each month in order to save the state $1.3 billion is the right thing to do, given the amount of spending that the state needs to cut.  In fact, the Governor’s plan, given the drastic problem created by chronic overspending going back years, is modest, and probably a precursor to more to come.  Especially if Democrats in the legislature refuse to take a scalpel to state spending, and continue to seem content to spend like mad until literally the money runs out.

If you remember last week, I took the Controller, John Chiang to task for reversing his position on this issue and siding with the unions who filed a lawsuit to stop the furloughs. Taking a look at his political contributions and obvious political ambition, his decision to side with the same unions that had contributed tens of thousands of dollars to his campaign for Controller showed that he is nothing but a union tool.  Even John and Ken blasted him on their radio show for that decision.  It bewilders me how on the one hand, the Controller is willing to withhold money from taxpayers (he doesn’t want to pay refunds, which is not the government’s money to hold onto!), while not willing to make savings in government spending.

Thankfully, the Judge smacked down the Controller today in court. Here’s some of the text from the ruling:

This is one issue where I am 100% behind the Governor, and you should be as well.  It should absolutely be within his authority to reduce the pay of state employees in lean times.  It would have been a complete travesty if state officials like Chiang, who are doing the union’s bidding, are allowed to block cost-saving actions taken by the state’s chief executive.  Just yesterday, the Governor told the Sacramento Press Corps that it was the only way of avoiding layoffs which is entirely within his authority.  Seeing the way that the unions are fighting even these modest proposals (when, frankly, they should be suggesting them) makes you wonder how they are going to handle the writing on the wall — which is that you can’t have major layoffs taking place in the private sector, and somehow believe that in the public sector, life goes on as if times aren’t tough.

This isn’t the only case that in which the Governor is battling with state employee unions and Chiang.  Last year the Governor issued an executive order to reduce state employee wages to the minimum wage until a budget was passed.  Chiang, at the unions bidding, took on Schwarzenegger’s legal authority and that case has yet to be decided.  It is simply appalling that the unions are trying to tie the hands of the Governor and would rather more money come from the pockets of taxpayers than allow cost-saving measures from being implemented.

There’s no question that this will be a hurdle in John Chiang’s next campaign.  Taxpayers will not forget that he put special interests ahead of the state’s interest.  We’ve elected our state officials to be responsible with our money and we’re all frustrated with how they’ve been handling it and overspending.  But what’s even more appalling, is when state officials get in the way of fiscal responsibility for political ambition.   I guess with Chiang, the unions are getting their money’s worth.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.