OC to have massive painful budget cuts

[No_Such_Reality_IHB]

Yes folks, the economy is taking OC down. They're going to have to do millions of dollars of painful cuts to all service departments.



$44 million dollars worth as reported by the LA times.



"It will be painful. It's very drastic," said Bob Wilson, deputy director of the Orange County Health Care Agency, "



Oh wait, OC's budget is being planned at $6.6 Billion for 2008/2009. $44 million dollars is painful? That's like taking 50 cents off of a $75 Grocery bill.



Oh double wait, the 2007/2008 OC budget was $5.9 Billion? So the 2008 budget is a 10% planned increase?



http://www.latimes.com/news/local/orange/la-me-ocbudget15-2008nov15,0,4224355.story



http://bos.ocgov.com/finance/2009WB/charts_frm.htm

 

[WINEX_IHB]

[quote author="No_Such_Reality" date=1226877780]Yes folks, the economy is taking OC down. They're going to have to do millions of dollars of painful cuts to all service departments.



$44 million dollars worth as reported by the LA times.



"It will be painful. It's very drastic," said Bob Wilson, deputy director of the Orange County Health Care Agency, "



Oh wait, OC's budget is being planned at $6.6 Billion for 2008/2009. $44 million dollars is painful? That's like taking 50 cents off of a $75 Grocery bill.



Oh double wait, the 2007/2008 OC budget was $5.9 Billion? So the 2008 budget is a 10% planned increase?



http://www.latimes.com/news/local/orange/la-me-ocbudget15-2008nov15,0,4224355.story



http://bos.ocgov.com/finance/2009WB/charts_frm.htm</blockquote>


Unfortunately that is the way that government operates.



A spending cut doesn't mean always mean an actual reduction in spending. It means that an increase won't be as high as bureaucrats had hoped it would be.



And, of course, the axe always has to fall where it will be most visible. (Another popular area to hit is education, and that hit always is accomplished by eliminating slots for teachers)



You'll hear various levels of government doing the same thing over the coming months. (I read that the state of California is actually considering a 5% income tax increase. Of course this won't be a 5% increase. A 5% increase would take the top rate from 9.2% to 9.66%. But rather, the desire is to raise the top rate to 14.2%) It's well past time for the tax payers to put their collective feet down on this nonsense.

 

[IrvineRenter_IHB]

I is unfortunate that this kind of propaganda from the government works. It is why government almost never gets smaller. In fact, I cannot recall the size of government at any level getting smaller in my lifetime. Even those politicians who got elected to make government smaller invariably made it much larger.