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To: Jim McMannis who wrote (110940)	4/23/2010 2:46:38 PM
From: Steve Lokness	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Jim; Be subject to the revenue at hand. Don't spend more than you take in. If you bloated salaries/pensions/programs based on revenues and projected revenue during the bubble and now are taking in less......then cuts have to be made. Rather than just trying to increase taxes to pay for what you already spent. I have no problem with that statement. You have said it well and done so without attacking all of the workers as if they are evil. Steve

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (110940)	4/23/2010 6:15:52 PM
From: benwood	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

The Federal gov't would be a good place to start for "don't spend more than you can take in." I know that in many areas, private pay is going down while public pay is holding steady or increasing; private retirement is getting tossed on it's ear while public is holding steady. I thought I'd make a prediction: public pay in most areas will be lagging in five years' time. This will occur because of gov't bankruptcies (i.e. in California), and also high inflation which I think will eventually cause private pay to go up, and public pay will once again lag just like in the 80s. The Fed is helping with this problem as we speak. The basic problem, though, in public versus private: public employees work slower to create job security (that is, more workers always needed, always too much to do); private workers work faster to create job security (the company can't do without me). I think in the public sector, it is very hard to combat the problem of a gazillion individuals making sure there's more to be done than the current crop of workers can accomplish. Exceptions abound in both arenas, but I think that's the gist of why gov't keeps expanding slowly regardless of market forces, but private ebbs and flows based on market forces, mostly flows to Asia/Mexico/Ireland etc. in the past 20 years because of too high a cost structure (a market force).