A Question of an Apparently Stupid Nature

What gives? Here I am- a simple rank-and-file teacher of inmates at a California state prison, and all of a sudden I’m responsible for all the financial ills in California! Lessee- until a year or so ago, I made less than the base pay of a correctional officer, and I went to college for five years and incurred all sorts of debt, compared to potentially a high-school diploma or a GED for the C.O.! Ok, I admit- I must have been the stupid one.

Now I should be making more than that C.O., because I spent more money obtaining a Master’s degree- but that C.O. still potentially makes way more than me because of overtime… specifically, the overtime he gets because the State negotiators were intimidated by Don Novey and agreed that the correctional officer could get time-and-a-half after any eight hour period, instead of the old “work forty hours first” policy. Then the “swaps” began to multiply, and the smart C.O. could “make bank” and work three days and make more money than he could working the regular 40! Boy, do I feel stupid now!

It must also be my fault that, according to Jeannie Woodford, a former director of CDCR, the headquarters staff has grown by 33%. Yeah, I should feel the pain for that one! Three hundred Sacramento sycophants oversee contracts for 9600 hospital beds? I don’t remember, but I must have planned that too. After all, I’m the one that pads the rolls in Sacramento to give out cushy assignments to those whose noses have been properly browned…

According to the Austrian wunderkind, I must feel the pain too. 10% isn’t enough to feel the pain. I deserve to be fired for daring to try and cut down the recidivism rate or to think that educated inmates are less of a burden to society (and, someday, they will be on your street). Whatever the case, what I must not do is question all the leftist programs that are still costing us millions in this state. Arnold must fire me before he waits a year to save the otter, or less inconsequential (compared to me! How dare I!) smelt to survive on their own for another year. How about a moratorium on AQMD regulations that are driving out businesses as we speak? Or other environmentalist schlock that otherwise protects elitist leftists bent on cracking the whip on the (shock of all shocks) conservative hoi polloi? I better especially not complain about how much illegals cost me, even if I lose my job in order to continue to give them FREE healthcare. If I manage to survive under pay cuts, I better be happy about doubling the per-kilowatt costs of energy in order to get it from wind (although I confess that the hot air heading south from Sacramento is awfully consistent). If I don’t like that, why don’t I spend $60K I don’t have on solar power? For crying out loud! I was stupid for not planning for required “green” energy! And if I don’t have the money for food because I was too busy buying my power “solarly”, I’m sure Maria “Antoinette” Shriver-Swarzeneggar will solve the problem by saying, “Let ‘em eat salsa and chips!”

I’m thinking it’s time for a unicameral legislature. It’s all rubber-stamping in that incestuous capital anyway, so why not save money and get rid of half of ‘em? They can get in line with me at the welfare and unemployment departments and find out what it means that they didn’t put enough money in those programs to cover all the people they got rid of. Or, they can do what I’ll probably be forced to do: walk away from my house, declare bankruptcy, and get out of this state as fast as I can. I don’t care if my tail is tucked between my legs- it’ll mean that much less tax revenue for you, Arnold. And when you rediscover that raising taxes reduces revenue and makes it that much worse for the State, here’s hoping someone with a crayon can illustrate for you what Archimedes said, “ Immaturity can be outgrown, drunkenness sobered… but stupid lasts forever.” You feel me?