The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ―Edmund Burke
For a good laugh, check out this amazing performance.
Now, we all know what Fox is…but do you think it’s really a newscast? The talking heads don’t look like SNL performers. Is it a joke, or is it Third-World-style journalism: can’t afford a real film clip or a trip to the zoo for the camera crew, so let’s punt?
Six-thirty in the morning and it’s already 90 degrees outside. Gotta go rescue plants. Later!
The turquoise-blue Arizona sky hasn’t fallen yet, though we wait for the occasional asteroid to hit the ground. The governor has called the legislature back into a special session, in hopes of getting something more like her way in the fight over the budget. Meanwhile, most state agencies (what remains of them) were open for business today.
An Arizona Republic reporter passes along something amazing, however. If the state fails to pay our salaries tomorrow, we’ll get a nice bonus:
A shutdown would harm the state’s credit rating, making it more expensive for Arizona to borrow money in the future, [State Treasurer Dean] Martin said. And if the state can’t make its $85 million biweekly payroll Thursday, federal law says the state could have to pay triple the amount, up to $255 million, to state workers as a penalty.
Well, in the case of university employees, nonpayment is unlikely to come to pass. Our college’s business manager says this week’s payroll has already been processed. If direct deposit is automated, as it almost certainly is, we should see our paychecks sometime tomorrow.
Besides, if the legislature (and governor) stink like dead fish now, just imagine the effect they’ll have on taxpayers when the state has to shell out $170 million dollars more than is actually owed to its workers! It won’t just be state employees and July 4 vacationers turned out of campgrounds who’ll be trying to vote the rascals out of office. Although the parks reopened this morning, most campers were rousted out yesterday afternoon.
It’s quite an Independence Day spectacle. More fireworks are on the way.
😀
In the wee hours of the morning, past the midnight deadline for shutting down the state government, our august leaders in the legislature passed an excruciatingly bad budget. That doesn’t mean, however, that we’re rescued, because the governor still has to pass or veto it. And there’s a good chance she will veto, because they took out her one-cent sales tax hike.
Local reporting here is so poor it’s hard to get a straight story—or much of any story—about what’s going on. Apparently they also took out the proposed flat tax, but getting details isn’t easy; the Arizona Capitol Times and the Arizona Guardian, which report decently on statewide issues, are by subscription only, so you can’t get into the story past the lede. The Repulsive offers a few details on its website, ruminating on whether the governor will veto or not (she has threatened to veto any bill that doesn’t include a sales tax increase) and reporting in a cursory way about the massive cuts to education and health care this thing entails.
Brewer (the guv) has ordered that state operations continue as usual and told state workers to appear at work on time this morning. Some observers think that indicates she intends to sign at least part of the bill. The Guardian suggests she’ll veto all but one of the package, leaving just enough in place to keep the government running for a while. She has ten days in which to make a decision.
One of the liveliest political bloggers in these parts drove up from Tucson to attend the legislative session, which went on past 1:00 a.m. According to him, the Democrats forced voice votes on a series of proposals to ameliorate the most vicious effects of the retrograde budget package, which of course the Republicans knee-jerked down—providing plenty of grist for the 2010 elections.
Meanwhile, most of the state’s parks, except for a few where local municipalities volunteered to oversee them temporarily, have already closed down. The Republican party, evidently grasping the implications for its political future, is calling for increases in clean election funding and in the amounts PACs can contribute to candidates by way of helping out prospective GOP candidates.
As for my own Beloved Employer, the prez sent out an e-mail telling everyone to report to work as usual and claiming that only 25 percent of the institution’s funding comes from the state.
Arizona State University, which has nearly 20,000 students attending summer classes and programs, more than 10,000 staff and students involved in research supported by a wide range of funding sources, and 70,000 students arriving in 6 weeks for the fall semester will remain open for service during this period of financial decisions by our partner, the State of Arizona.
More than 75 percent of ASU operating revenues come from sources other than the state of Arizona. Specific tuition driven and research driven revenues fund our summer operations. As a result we will focus our attention relative to state funding interruptions on our planning for the fall semester.
A state government shutdown lasting through the opening of the fall semester on August 24 would impact staffing and program availability significantly.
The exact impact and the ability of the university to operate normally will be evaluated on a weekly basis moving forward.
In the interim all assignments and work of the university will move forward.
Evidently intended to stave off panic, this missal is full of speciousness. Twenty-five percent of the university’s budget is huge, more than enough to shut the place down. It is, after all, a state university, not a private college. And it has already sustained cuts that have forced it to can hundreds of workers, closing down entire academic programs. The likelihood that the state will shut down and stay shut down through the middle of August, when fall semester begins, is nil. But that little bit of drama does allow him to segue quietly to the remark that operations will be reassessed on a week-by-week basis. In other words: at any time you could be laid off…
My paycheck notice is online, but it remains to be seen whether the money actually will be deposited in the credit union on Thursday. I’m expecting it will. But as for next payday: it’s anyone’s guess.
Uhm…I guess I’ll have to rescind my ire at the remark by one of our state legislators that teachers are feeding at the public trough. Now, bear in mind that the Goldwater Institute is a conservative think tank, and as we all know, it’s pretty easy to slant a survey. But…hevvin help us, take a look at this. After you’ve run your eye down the list of very basic questions the surveyors asked Arizona high school students, go on to page 2 for the eye-popping results.
Don’t believe it? I wouldn’t, either, if I hadn’t asked a roomful of university juniors and seniors to brainstorm a list of important events that happened in the U.S. during the nineteenth century. World War I made the list. What didn’t make it? Emancipation. The Spanish-American War. The Gadsden Purchase. Lewis and Clark’s expedition. The War of 1812. Construction of the Erie Canal. Nat Turner’s revolt. Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. War with Mexico.
None of those. Didn’t happen. Or if they did, we didn’t notice.
Well. Bring up ignoramuses, and they elect ignoramuses to state and federal office. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?
Maybe there’s method in our state legislators’ madness…
The other day it occurred to me that I was constantly digging through my file drawers to pull out the same folders full of material I’m wrestling with on a regular basis. The stuff falls into two major categories: the Layoff/Retirement hassle (phone numbers; the 403(b) rollover; COBRA; RASL; back vacation pay; relevant official policies; unemployment insurance) and the upcoming Social Security/Medicare hassle (estimated benefits; tax & earnings information and ancient W-2’s proving SSA’s errors; identifying documents). I hate dorking with pieces of paper—just hate it. Consequently, I try to be as organized as possible. That urge has led me to create altogether too many files stored in altogether too many places. Time to reorganize this stuff and make it a lot more accessible.
Some time back I’d realized that printing out my online Rolodex and storing it in a three-ring binder simplified life significantly: no more waiting for the Mac to grind away at the speed of a galloping snail to open the online file, and no more having to reboot if the machine was off.
So…why not organize the mounds of paper associated with the two current projects into loose-leaf binders, too? These can be stashed with the reference works atop the desk and grabbed whenever they’re needed. No more pawing through one, two, three, four file drawers in search of that one elusive sheet of paper!
This afternoon I dug out all those files and organized them into two binders. Original, official documents that I didn’t want to submit to the three-hole punch got photocopied; on the photocopy I noted where the original is stored.
I made dividers by sticking one edge of a mailing label to the edge of a piece of notebook paper, then folding the label over and sticking the back side to the paper sheet’s verso side. I’d bought some cheapie dividers at Target, but because the labels were supposedly erasable, ink smeared on them—covering the slick labels with pieces of mailing label fixed that problem.
Keeping paper and electronic records organized is a key process in frugal financial management. You can’t manage your money easily unless you know where your information is. Searching through drawers and boxes of files is a pain in the tuchus, and so is trying to find a single file or datum hidden deep inside a computer.
Yah, I know; Spotlight. Very nice: it brings up 87 gerjillion files for you to rifle through. Argh! Not to say $#%@&@*@*#$D!!!!! Eventually you’ll probably find what you’re looking for in a computer search, but it may be a long eventually.
Lots easier to organize this stuff efficiently at the outset than to do searches every time you turn around. Though there may be a better way, I’m fond of folders and subfolders:
Every now and again you should go through your files, toss or shred the junk, and tidy up the organization. This means more paper-pushing, virtual and real, a hateful process. However, sometimes it can be instructive. Today, for example, I discovered that the ancient piece of cardboard I thought was my original Social Security card is not; it was a “stub” that came with the card, issued in 1967. So now I’ll have to go in person to the Social Security office and order a new SS card—good thing I found that out before I went in to get SS benefits started! I also reviewed some old W-2’s my ex- sent a couple of years ago and realized that they show earnings for several of the years Social Security claims I had no earnings. That may jack up my benefits!
As exercises go, today’s project was less than fun. But the result, I expect, will make life a lot easier. And if that little revelation above increases my retirement benefits, the past two hours of ditzy work will pay for themselves many times over!
Yay! Funny is back on MSN Smart Spending with the piece on the charms of older houses. Thanks, Karen!
If you haven’t come upon Smart Spending yet, you should check it out. It’s a rich compendium of tips, leads, articles, and opinion about personal finance and frugality. Some of the articles are guest posts by PF bloggers and some are written by the blog’s administrators, both experienced journalists. It’s very high in quality, with interesting posts appearing daily.