the official blog of the evergreen freedom foundation

On the last day of 2008, a year resembling the 13th floor in many skyscrapers and one that a lot of us would just have soon skipped altogether, a few things caught my attention.

 

By now, we're all aware that Gov. Christine Gregoire didn't include in her proposed budget funding for wage/benefit increases negotiated between the state and the several unions that represent public employees.  The biggies, Washington Federation of State Employees and Service Employees International Union, have been clogging the courts and doing untold environmental damage (Hey! Lawsuits use up paper, which is made by cutting tries, which destroys animal habitat...yada, yada, yada) with bizarre lawsuits seeking to declare the gov a ward of the court or some such with them getting the right to unlimited access to the state treasury.

 

Or words to that effect...

 

In perusing the proposed budget, however, I found no mention of the arbitration awards for employees of Washington State Ferries - funded or not, I couldn't tell.  So, I wrote to WSF and asked only to have confirmed what I suspected:  WSF employees are, if you will, in the same boat as all other state workers.  No raises for them either.

 

Sad...especially for those 189 WSF union-represented employees who are members of the $100K Klub - how will they make do?  Food stamps?  Medicaid? Maybe we should take up a collection...

 

Another item that really intrigued me was this article in this morning's Seattle Times detailing Gov. Gregoire's plan to have illegal aliens who are are serving time in state jails deported as a way to cut the state's jail costs.   What stunning common sense!

 

According to the article, there are 350 cons who would be eligible for a one-way ticket to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement lockup thence another one-way out of the country.  Currently, these 350 cost the state an average of $90 per day...you do the math.

 

OK, OK, OK...it works out to roughly $11.5 million per year. 

 

Of course, the idea is being met by the usual opposition.  So-called immigrant rights groups contend that "even those with criminal convictions can still be eligible for citizenship." Isn't that special!  Would that then entitle them to extra-legal voting privileges ?  In this state where everything is up for grabs, it helps to know the answer to avoid confusion later on.

 

Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Renton, chair of the budget-writing Ways and Means committee was quoted likening the idea to "mistreatment."  Glad she's so four-square on the side of illegal cons in the can for illegal crimes against legal citizens/residents/taxpayers - she's got their vote sown up.

 

A program similar to the one proposed by the gov is already in operation in both Arizona and New York.  Again per the Times article, the Arizona program is touted by state officials as successful.  Opening up prison beds, cutting costs, and sending those who are here illegally and criminals to boot back from whence they cometh sounds like the biggest slam-dunk since statehood.

 

If it takes a huge budget squeeze to get the gov and her administration to move in such a common sense, pro-public-safety and enforcement-of-federal-immigration-law direction, then I guess I'm in favor of huge budget squeezes.  It's amazing the number foxhole converts to good policy that are made this way. 

 

In the meantime...Sen. Prentice?  Jimmy Buffet called - he's cancelling rights to your name.  Something about taking him too literally as evidenced by your siding with illegal alien cons against Washington taxpayers.

 

The Piper