3,880 Maine State Government Jobs Should Be Eliminated

8 Comments
Maine State Government Jobs to be Eliminated
Maine State Government Jobs to be Eliminated

We haven’t seen it yet – the demonstrating in the capital, the Jesse Jackson led parades through the Statehouse, and van loads of democrats fleeing the state (although one of them is getting a head start). But it is coming soon.

The unions, the professional left and myriad other taxpayer funded entities are gearing up to oppose the the Governor’s new budget. My question is – why?

They got off easy.

As the Kennebec Journal pointed out the other day, LePage’s budget is only going to eliminate 81 state government positions. And, of those 81, only 12 are filled by actual people. To put this in perspective, there are 27,660 state government workers (including Maine’s public colleges).

A quick recap – LePage is looking to cut 81 out of 27,660 positions. And the unions are gearing up to stage their beloved “solidarity” protests.

As you can see from MHPC’s most recent study, we really could have, and should have, cut 3,880 state government jobs. We don’t need 27,660 state employees. We are way above the national average, and all other New England states manage to get by with a leaner workforce, with the exception of Vermont. Why do we need 3,000 more state workers than New Hampshire?

I know we are going to hear protests from the unions about the pension reform proposals in LePage’s budget. They will say that not having an increase of up to 4% every single year will be “devastating” and “unfair”, and that asking them to contribute more to their own retirement is “wrong”. But LePage’s reasonable reforms are A) desperately needed to start reducing Maine’s $4.4 billion unfunded liability and B) not nearly as drastic as they could have been (think 401k for all public workers like they did in Utah).

So when you see the purple-clad union bosses march on Augusta and the  paid operatives from Maine People’s Alliance leading chants supporting more pay raises for government workers, remember – 81 positions should have been 3,880.

They should be marching to Augusta to thank the Governor.