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1. Doug Drake
   Posted September 14, 2007 at 3:04 pm | Permalink

   John, re your last point on the mass willingness to ignore long-term issues:some of the cuts only/reforms, such as the Senate passed early-out will dramatically increase the unfunded costs for pensions and retiree health care--on the order of $1 billion or more. In addition, the Senate numbers assumed that all of the eligibles leave October 1, which will be tough to do since the bill hasn't passed both houses, so the "savings" number is overstated, plus losing some of these employees and not replacing them may have impacts on things like federal matching funds requirements and the troublesome little issue of who's going to watch the inmates that no one wants to release. In addition, since the Senate proposed cuts were only presented at a conceptual level, and never adopted in detail, we don't really know the full impact of cuts on services and things like federal matching rates..we could end up losing lots of federal dollars in addition to the state cuts. It will be tough to come out of the last minute crisis with a good balanced plan.

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