The basis for this increase in public office holders' salary is the fact that 1,254 other state employees who earn more than the governor's current $151,800 (11th in the entire U.S. for governor pay), and quite simply, that's not enough. Plus, the governor's salary is only in the neighborhood of 8% of the salary of major corporation CEOs. This would be funny if it wasn't for the fact that nearly every single person who will benefit from the proposed pay raises is a (D) who has at one point in time or another espoused the belief that corporate CEOs are akin to the Devil, and should be denigrated at every available opportunity.
I would think that in light of our current budget crisis here in the Bay State, the proper move would not to be to hand out raises to those who are unworthy, but rather to hand out salary decreases to those 1%ers walking around on the public dole, most of whom have never worked an honest day in their lives (I apologize to the handful of public employees that earn above $152,000 who actually do something to help the general public.), and again, many who have decried how unfair it is that job producers and creators earn the salaries that they do.
The good news for the citizenry of MA is that outgoing (D) governor Deval Patrick has already stated that he will not sign the bill authorizing the pay increases until the (D) legislature agrees to the spending cuts he sent down to them, which they have thus far not agreed to. Incoming (R) governor Charlie Baker had this to say with regard to the ridiculous pay increases:
The people of Massachusetts deserve a state government that is as thrifty as they are and now is not the time to award pay raises when a significant budget deficit is forcing cuts to many programs and services."It will be interesting to see how this battle over nearly unwarranted raises plays out in the remaining days of 2014.
