Ready for some steam-stink MSM lies, America?
(Blog author wonders when the lying will ever end; when they are out of business I suppose)"
"California closes for business as workers told to stay home" by Judy Lin, Associated Press | February 7, 2009
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California drivers who needed to renew their licenses or registration found no one to help yesterday at the Department of Motor Vehicles. The doors to the state health agency were locked, too. Even Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's emergency services office was dark.
Hundreds of state offices closed because there was nobody to run them: More than 200,000 state employees had to take the day off yesterday without pay to help ease California's budget crisis....
WTF are you guys paying taxes for? Giveaways to banks and corporations like here?
Critical services such as state fire stations and centers that process unemployment insurance claims remained open, as well as state parks. The days off, expected to be the first and third Fridays of each month, will trim the average state worker's salary by 9.2 percent as Schwarzenegger and lawmakers try to solve a $42 billion budget shortfall.
"It feels like we're being punished because we chose a career in state government," said Shelia Byars, 47, a hearing officer at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Van Nuys.
Byars, who expected to lose $200 in pay yesterday and $400 a month, was among about a dozen union members protesting outside the agency's office in downtown Los Angeles. She said it didn't make sense to close 180 DMV locations because they collect revenue for the state through licenses and registration fees.
The California furloughs began as the latest national unemployment numbers underscored how quickly the recession is deepening. The nation's employers shed 598,000 jobs in January, the highest number in 35 years. In all, 3.6 million Americans have lost their jobs since the start of the downturn.
California's unemployment rate is 9.3 percent, a 15-year high. At the state Department of Transportation, a handful of engineers were working yesterday, although they were not being paid....
State agencies scrambled in the days before the furloughs took effect to inform the public, but that did not prevent many people from showing up yesterday at DMV offices around the state.
I'm not surprised; those are people who pay no attention to news.
--more--"
And don't worry, California citizen. Meg will save you:
LOS ANGELES - Former
Whitman, 52, has never run for public office, but is hoping that Californians will see her corporate background as just what the state needs to break its chronic cycle of fiscal disasters.
"California faces challenges unlike any other time in its history - a weak and faltering economy, massive job losses and an exploding state budget deficit," Whitman said in a written statement. "California is better than this, and I refuse to stand by and watch it fail."
That's a harsh indictment of the guvernator, isn't it?
Whitman's chief rival for the party nomination is state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, also a high-tech tycoon.... Whitman has offered no details on the agenda she would pursue as governor, and her campaign website avoided specifics. But she has made clear that she will position herself - like Poizner and Campbell - as a fiscal conservative and social moderate who supports abortion rights....
So she's the same as Arnie? More change, America!
