Alabamians are being fleeced.  Our state government is simply taking money from us and using it as leverage to take more from us.  Stories like this are the reason I am ardently opposed to tax increases.

Alabama two-year college presidents send more than $150,000 a year in state money to a group that lobbies for their causes, including efforts to kill Gov. Bob Riley’s ban on colleges hiring legislators.

The presidents’ group has opposed Riley’s legislation to ban hiring lawmakers, although the state school board hasn’t taken a position because it remains sharply divided on the issue.

Despite absurd cries from various media outlets that our taxes are too low - a concept I don’t even understand - our state government has enough money to:

  • Give a 62% pay raise to our legislators.
  • Lavishly furnish legislator offices.
  • Hire lobbyists (again with our money) to oppose changes in the law that would prevent them from being able to rent hire legislators.
  • Buy a fancy SUV for a state official while laying off her personnel due to budget woes.

There is a direct correlation between government revenue (a fancy term for tax money taken out of our pockets) and government waste.  Even with our supposedly low taxes our elected officials still can’t seem to keep a lid on wasteful spending.  I cannot in good conscience give them more money any more than I could hand a bottle of booze to a drunkard.

My wife must get on her knees and offer a prayer of thanks that I don’t live in a district represented by some bozo (I won’t name names, but suffice it to say the list is long in our fair state) because I would simply be compelled to run for office out of sheer civic duty.  This madness has to end.

Kudos to Julie for the heads up on the latest two year scandal story.  They’re getting hard to keep up with at this point.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Alabama, Government Waste. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.