Thursday, October 22, 2009

Bonuses and human services

According today's Boston Globe, the Governor is thinking of cutting about $50 million from the Commonwealth's 1.2 bllion dollar human services budget -- mostly in aid to the disabled.

Suppose that each state faced equal cuts. That's $2.5 billion in cuts -- assuming many low-population states balance out states like California and NY.

Compare that to the estimated $140 billion in compensation due to be handed out to traders and execs of just the top two dozen financial institutions. You could almost certainly pay the entire human services budget of all states with just this money, and probably have enough left over to buy new Beamers for all those bankers as well.

Wouldn't it be nice if they themselves made some gesture to donate a good chunk of this money to help their fellows, after all we've done for them? But no: dream on. That's why we despise them so.

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