Printing money

OC Register

The Schwarzenegger administration continues to take a beating from Democrats and their union allies over attempts to reform California's bloated government, which leads us to the obvious question: If reforms are off the table, then how can the books ever be balanced? The answer, at least to Democrats, is always the same: raising taxes.

A recent small example of the Democratic strategy in Sacramento shows how difficult it is to reform a $115 billion state budget. "Democrats have used their legislative majority to torpedo a nine-year-old program that has allowed state agencies to hire private printers for government jobs instead of always using the money-losing state printer," reported the Sacramento Bee on Tuesday.

Democrats, led by Sen. Joe Dunn of Santa Ana and Assemblyman Rudy Bermudez of Norwalk, also turned back efforts by the state to lay off 120 state printers that are no longer needed.

So instead of saving the state a few million dollars - $6.15 million, according to a Schwarzenegger spokesman - these Democratic leaders are putting the kibosh on contracting-out and are insisting on keeping scores of jobs that are unnecessary. They are doing the bidding of the public-employee unions, which is not uncommon, unfortunately. Even in the face of a rapidly escalating pension crisis, in which public-employee pension programs of state and local governments are running deficits and consuming increasing revenues, Democrats are pushing forward plans that would actually increase pension benefits for these workers.

The unions representing the printers and legislators opposing the contracting-out argue that the losses in the print shop are due to the contracting-out. In the private sector, when a company contracts out for a service, the company typically lays off the employees who used to do the work in-house. But the legislators and union leaders complaining about print-shop losses are opposing efforts to lay off the no-longer-needed employees.

If the dominant party will not even allow minor savings around the edges, then serious reform will never take place.