(no subject)
so one of the sites i have in my google reader is a local news site, and tonight one of the stories was summarized with "the governor’s proposed budget includes a 31% pay hike for judges and it retroactive to 2005." ARE YOU KIDDING? i read the whole article and it amounts to $58 million! how about... they tell the judges to suck it up and then slash the proposed state school cuts from $114 million to $56 million. i mean it's ridiculous, the state has a deficit of almost $7.4 billion, and the judicial branch decided that this is the year they ought to propose a pay raise? they say that they haven't gotten a pay raise in ten years and that their pay rate is the second lowest in the entire country, but on average they make $125k every year. so... boohoo. paterson is trying to create a tax on sugared drinks, increase tax on cigarettes, close four prisons (thereby removing thousands of jobs), cut $1 billion from schools ($58 million from SUNY schools)... i mean, really? new york and especially western new york has historically had a shitty economy and a shitty job market, and the way to fix everything is to increase taxes and decrease jobs?
it's just so maddening. and obama actually personally asked paterson not to run again, presumably because he's doing such a bad job. it's like... people are leaving this area overall, businesses are either closing down or relocating elsewhere in the country, and he wants to tax the hell out of the suckers that are still left up here. awesome.
it's just so maddening. and obama actually personally asked paterson not to run again, presumably because he's doing such a bad job. it's like... people are leaving this area overall, businesses are either closing down or relocating elsewhere in the country, and he wants to tax the hell out of the suckers that are still left up here. awesome.