The more things change, the more they remain the same. The Governor of California has just decided to partially balance the State budget on the backs of State employees. Schwarzenegger proposes tax increases, employee furloughs Sacramento Bee, 11/6/08
More below:
Now that we're finally getting paid regularly and some of have even gotten raises, der Gropernator has proposed cutting our pay nearly 5% across the board. Just like in 1993, we're going to be 'furloughed' one day a month. If this is like the last time, we'll be given the choice of taking that day off (without pay) or we can come in to work (without pay) and be granted a credit of 8 hours that we can take as time off later or that we will eventually be cashed out. While it would probably be easy to take care of this by increasing the marginal tax rate on the top bracket of our state income tax by 1% this is about as likely to happen as it is for the sun to rise in the west. Or, they could eliminate the yacht (or private jet) exemption. If you purchase an expensive toy but keep it outside of the State for the first year of ownership, you don't pay a luxury tax on it.
On top of this, we're supposed to suddenly increase our output to stimulate the economy by getting more construction projects out. Lord knows, we've got a substantial backlog of things to fix and improve but how we're supposed to do this with a hiring freeze, I'll never know. OH!, wait a minute, we'll contract out the work to private consulting engineering firms at twice the cost. Don't you just love Republicans?