(Editor’s Note: California’s Capitol was preparing a posting about GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s assertions that axing 40,000 state employees will help rein in the state’s excessive bureaucracy. As the chief correspondent’s former colleage at the San Francisco Chronicle points out at California Watch, it isn’t so:)
Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman wants to chop the state’s workforce by 40,000 employees, a pledge she made again this weekend at the state GOP convention. But does the nation-state of California really have such a bloated government?
Not according to the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, an independent research group based in Palo Alto. The director, Stephen Levy, is one of the principal experts on the state’s economy, and he reported in December:
“There is broad agreement that seeking efficiencies in government programs is good public policy. Yet, the data suggest that at the aggregate level California is not overstaffed relative to caseloads in the major program areas. Indeed, a stronger case can be made that public programs are being carried out with less staffing than in most other states.”
In his report from last December…
So when did it become necessary to have facts to back up political rhetoric? Facts only confuse folk. Meg’s 40,000 firings are only a flourish–much like “Death Panels” and “Birth Certificate” issues. It ain’t necessary to back up the claims–fully one-third of the folk of one of the major political parties fully believe it. Meggie’s just pushing hopefully hot buttons. And I am tired.
Deputy Dawg needs to be specific about where she would cut. Easy to say, really hard to do with Civil Service and union protections. Meg has morphed into sound bites. At least Jerry Brown says, “I don’t know” once in a while when stumped, but shows the organizational ability to find solutions, as strange as that may seem, given his past.
I think all of us welcome a real debate about the issues facing California, especially after the last decade of corner-office miscues, photo ops and read-from-the-script governing.