Last week, The Hammer reported on an editorial from The News Tribune suggesting a "radical" approach to balancing our state's $2.6 billion budget deficit.  The Tribune's "radical" suggestions—do what other businesses have had to do to survive.  Lay people off, cut pay and/or benefits, consider outsourcing—in short, do whatever it takes to make state government leaner and more efficient.  Sidenote—is The Hammer alone in thinking things are out of whack when making government more efficient is considered "radical?"

Since then, daily newspapers around the state, including Spokane, Yakima, Vancouver, Seattle, Walla Walla, Bellingham, and Longview, have jumped on the "radical" bandwagon and called on Governor Gregoire to shrink the size of state government.  They echo The Tribune's opinion that any talk of new taxes should be shelved until this happens.

The recurring themes among these editorials are contracting out services and breaking state-run monopolies, as are trimming state workers' overly generous health care benefits and suspending the 5% pay increases currently planned for about 40% of state employees (yep, you read that right...a 5% pay INCREASE!).  Requiring state workers to pony up 20% of their health insurance premiums (state workers pay just 12% of their health insurance premiums while private sector workers pay around 23%) could save the state well over $100 million.  And halting the 5% pay increase for state workers could save $83 million.   

Let's be honest, state workers have a sweet deal going.  State workers earn an average $53,000 with another $13,000 in benefits—that's $66,000.  Private sector workers average just $40,414 in salary and benefits.  And while private sector working stiffs lose sleep at night wondering if they'll still have a job in the morning, state workers have no such worries.  Heck, state government is the only industry creating jobs in this crummy economy; state government has added 8,200 jobs since 2008 while the private sector has hemorrhaged over 170,000.

Of course, the unions that represent state workers aren't taking kindly to any talk of undoing the gains they invested a lot of money to obtain.  The mere mention of stopping their gravy train elicits howls of protest and threats of payback come election time.

So while it's nice to read the state's newspapers calling for some much needed trimming of the state's fat, The Hammer is betting we have a better chance of seeing pigs fly than unionized state workers losing any of their hard bargained benefits.