Pay cuts

To better grasp the fiscal condition of the once-golden state of California, envision the majestic ocean liner Titanic, all alight -- with her hind end sticking up in the air.

The problem isn't revenue. Yes, the recession has reduced revenues below what the dividers of the spoils in Sacramento had hoped for. But California still rakes in far more than it did in its heyday, a century ago -- even when you correct for population growth.

The problem is government spending, including out-of-control spending on salaries and benefits for California's bloated, unionized state work force.

There's a limit to what the state's independent pay commission can do about that: It's only empowered to adjust salaries for the state's handful of elected officials.

But last May the Citizens Compensation Commission voted to trim salaries for those elected in 2010 and beyond.

The chief administrative officer of the state Assembly apparently was not pleased. He sent a letter to state Attorney General Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown seeking an opinion on the planned cuts.

The inquiry seems to have backfired. On Thursday, Mr. Brown ruled the state constitution allows the seven-member Compensation Commission, which is appointed by the governor, to reduce the salaries of legislators and other elected officials in the middle of their terms. So the commission is imposing the 18 percent pay cuts -- in two weeks.

"We're broke," explains Chairman Charles Murray (a Los Angeles insurance salesman, not the libertarian scholar and columnist). "This cut needs to happen now. It's the right thing to do."

A spokeswoman for the state controller's office told the Los Angeles Times it plans to reduce lawmakers' base salary from $116,000 to $95,000 as of Dec. 7.

Constitutional officers will see similar cuts.

Nevada's fiscal condition is not yet as bad as that of California. But as Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons contemplates corralling wayward lawmakers to trim more from the budget, California's salary-trimming example may be worth a look.

Carson City lawmakers recently handed enormous salary hikes to judges, county commissioners and others. That may have seemed justifiable during the go-go-decades, but those salaries start to look obscene to today's hard-working Nevadans, scraping by on part-time paychecks.