Fire the Parasites. Just the Parasites

Anyone who's ever worked in Kentucky state government is familiar with the plague of political appointees - campaign contributors and their idiot nephews - given "special assistant" positions paying $75,000 or more for no work.

But anyone who's ever worked in state government is also familiar with the blessing of politicial appointees who arrive bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with the authority to make overdue and necessary changes.

The issue is not the number of political appointees or even how much they get paid. The issue is distinguishing the ones who contribute from the ones who don't.

The issue is also the refusal of either Governor Beshear and the General Assembly to do the hard, uncomfortable work of figuring out who is which.

From the Herald:

Gov. Steve Beshear is asking the Kentucky Personnel Board to exempt 81 political appointees from a new budget-cutting law that would abolish their jobs Dec. 31.

The appointees are midlevel officials across state government. Beshear did not submit their names to the board, just job titles and agencies. They include “policy advisers,” who start with a $75,729 salary on average under Beshear, and “special assistants,” who on average start at $61,980.

The request rankles a group representing rank-and-file state workers.

“Many of these jobs don’t actually do anything that serves the public,” said Melissa Jan Williamson, vice president of the Kentucky Association of State Employees. “Most of the public service is performed by the merit workers, who are paid less and who are being furloughed.”

Beshear spokeswoman Kerri Richardson said the administration remains committed to reducing the cost of non-merit, or appointed, positions by $5 million by the end of the fiscal year on June 30. But all of the 81 jobs in question are necessary, Richardson said.

“While some of these non-merit positions are called ‘assistants,’ they include deputy commissioners, deputy directors, general counsels, policy advisers and the chief public health nurse — positions that remain essential to the service of the agency or cabinet,” Richardson said.

My guess is that of those 81 appointees, about half are genuine assets necessary to serving Kentucky's citizens, and about half are the idiot nephews of big campaign contributors.

The Personnel Board, instead of voting up or down on the whole list, should demand that the Governor's Office present specific justifications for each person: what work each does, why that work cannot be done by existing merit staff, and how well that person does the work.

But the ignored elephant in the room is the fact that eliminating jobs is ... wait for it ... bad for the economy.

Every person who loses a job spends less money in local stores, which then have to lay off employees, who then spend less, and on and on in a vicious spiral into catastrophe.

Not to mention that people without jobs aren't paying taxes. In other words, laying people off reduces state revenue.

How about trying to increase state revenue? How about pinching some of this state's fat cats to support the state that helped them accumulate those barely-taxed fortunes?

Reform Kentucky's feudal tax structures to ensure rich people and corporations pay taxes at a rate that reflects the benefits they receive. Then we'll talk about who deserves a job and who doesn't.