Democracy for Vancouver

Economy in a slump? State budget hurting for tax revenues? Here’s your solution:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered the layoffs of thousands of state workers Thursday and steep pay cuts for most other state employees to ease California’s budget crunch, moves that could mean longer lines at the DMV and delays in processing of workers’ compensation claims.

The state has been without a budget since the fiscal year began on July 1 as the governor and the Democratic-controlled Legislature work to come up with a spending plan to fill a $17.2 billion gap.
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The governor’s move to cut the pay of 200,000 employees to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour, effective today, would save the state as much as $1.2 billion a month.
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Also on Thursday, about 10,300 seasonal and temporary state workers were given layoff notices, a move that will result in savings of $19.7 million a month for the state, officials said.

Most of those jobs are clerical and administrative and won’t have an impact on public safety and emergency services, administration officials said. But the cuts are likely to affect other services, such as customer service at Department of Motor Vehicles offices and the processing of workers’ comp claims.

And new unemployment claims.

Jeebus. The state of California is one of the biggest economies in the world, with some of the world’s most successful and lucrative industries. How many of the country’s millionaires and billionaires live in California? And how many of them are Republicans?

But somehow laying off state workers and cutting even the most senior managers down to $6.55 an hour makes more sense than asking the wealthiest Californians to chip in during a crisis.

Even that fascist Henry Ford knew that without demand from the rabble, the capitalist system falls apart. See how much demand there is for California’s movies and theme parks and agricultural goods when you take away the paychecks of the masses.

It’s called enlightened self-interest, guys. You might want to engage in a little - especially since employment outside the civil service sector sucks even worse. From our international banker this morning:

The job loss in July was less than expected, with 51,000 positions shed compared to the 75,000 loss projected although the unemployment rate hit its highest level in four years, rising to 5.7% from 5.5% in the Labor Department report… Bottom line though is that we have lost jobs every month this year for a total of 463,000. In a typical year, the US would have created over 700,000 jobs year-to-day.

Are you better off now than you were eight years ago?

We’ll all telegraph our gratitude to the GOP on November 4.