Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005...9:09 am
Repubicans Whining Again (Yeah, Nothing New)
I was looking over my previous posts to see if any of you are writing replies. None of you did.
But I looked back at my post about George Weah. So, I’m thinking, this guy has had his house torched and members of his family attacked, but that still doesn’t disuade him from running for office. But, the Republicans are claiming that they can’t recruit a candidate for Governor of Arizona because of the low salary.
So says Nathan Sproul, a “Republican Strategist.” I guess that’s what they call what he does these days. Anyway, he said in a recent arictle in the Republic:
“I think it clearly has kept some Republicans from running,” GOP strategist Nathan Sproul said. “No question about it. We exclude an entire population of people who would make excellent governors, simply because the salary is too low.”
For those of you keeping track, the Governor makes $95,000. Not exactly on the high-end, but decent money in a state where the median income is $47,219. She turned down a raise of $65,000 earlier this year. Think about that for a minute: $65,000. The raise itself would have been more than the average family makes.
This comes at a time when the state budget is being trimmed, nay, chopped. Let me give you an example of what this means. I work in adult education. One of my bosses goes to a conference every year up in Flagstaff. Last year, there were people from about seventy programs there; this year there were a bit more than thirty. This is mostly due to state budget cuts. So, it was right that the governor not take a pay hike when we can’t meet the needs of our poorest citizens.
To some extent, I agree with arguments that a growing state like ours should have a better paid chief executive. But the argument that somehow qualified people aren’t running because of the salary is ridiculous, and frankly insulting to the working people of this state. The stat that I quoted above is “median income.” Not mean, but median. That means somewhere around half the people in the state are living on less than $47,219. But, we can’t find a decent Republican who wants to make less than six figures?
Heck, Matt Salmon was happy to run for Republican Party Chairman so he wouldn’t have to run for Governor, and it doesn’t pay a salary at all.
Which brings us to the real reason: it has nothing to do with the salary, but the fact that polls show Napolitano to be a very strong candidate, and no one wants to be the one to lose to her.
Say, you would think that if they are so concerned about the Governor’s salary and being able to attract qualified people, they would finally do something about the low pay of thousands of our other state employees? Nah.
5 Comments
August 2nd, 2005 at 5:17 pm
God forbid a candidate come from the middle class. A peasant. How awful!
Is Arizona running out of rich people full of hubris, I mean, leadership?
August 2nd, 2005 at 9:40 pm
I wonder what kind of Republican would run for governor just because they needed the money?
Sounds kinda funny to me.
I’d say something a little more clever but I just got off a 13-hour shift and I left my brain back at work in my locker. Don’t you just hate that?
August 3rd, 2005 at 11:11 am
No CEO wants to step away from the feeding trough long enough to be governor - so they can rig the government so that more of their CEO buddies can get more “privatized” pork from the state government.
Greed apparently does have its limits. I love how Janet rejecting a raise is suddenly a bad thing. I’m sure if she accepted it, they’d be hammering her as well.
August 4th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
You mean people actually run for office with the only intention of wanting to be a greedy bastard? I am just shocked! I never thought of the 90K pay raise I would have gotten had I beaten JD! (okay maybe a few times)
April 23rd, 2007 at 5:28 pm
[…] would have made more folks think it was worth a go. At the time, I noted in a bit of hyperbole that candidates for office in other countries make bigger sacrifices than a pay cut to a “paltry” $95,000. Heck, Napolitano herself could probably easily […]
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