Barbara Boxer must be feeling the heat from last week’s poll showing her losing the one fight she cares most about: the fight to save her job. She joined her union buddies and her good friend Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at a rally to talk about pouring more taxpayer dollars into big-government programs, all in the name of “creating” “jobs.”
Mayor Villaraigosa, of course, is one of Boxer’s top supporters, and given Boxer’s rhetoric on the campaign trail at taxpayer-funded events criticizing Carly’s leadership at Hewlett-Packard, we’re curious how Boxer feels about Villaraigosa’s decision to lay off hundreds of government employees.
LA Mayor Villaraigosa Has Announced Plans To Lay Off As Many As 1,700 Workers This Year. “The growth of the Mayor’s Office comes at a time when the city is looking to lay off workers – possibly as many as 1,700 this year – and when he has asked employees to take pay cuts.” (Rick Orlov, “L.A. Mayor’s Staff Largest Ever,” The Daily News Of Los Angeles, 8/8/10)
For his part, Mayor Villaraigosa explained to CNBC that these tough times require tough choices, including when it comes to staffing.
VILLARAIGOSA: “We made the tough decisions. Look, over the last three years, we’ve had to cut almost a billion dollars in deficits in our city. And we’ve done it. We’ve extricated about 3,500 jobs from a workforce in the general fund of about 14,000 jobs. So we’ve made the tough decisions, and we’ll continue to make them into the future. Next year, we’re looking at another deficit. We’re doing furloughs and layoffs, we’re doing everything we can, including early retirement, to reduce the size of our payroll.” (CNBC’s “The Call,” 6/14/10)
So, Senator Boxer, do you believe making fiscally responsible decisions during tough times is always wrong? Or do you make exceptions for your fellow Democrats and campaign supporters? Inquiring minds want to know.
We’ll let you ponder that one for a while. But ponder quickly because, in the meantime, our deficit and our debt have hit record levels, our economy is not recovering as you promised us it would and more than 2 million Californians are out of work due to the destructive policies you’ve pushed for during your nearly three decades in Washington.
And that bites.