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Looking back, a really sad aspect of California’s budget disaster has been the behavior of too many self-serving state and county lawmakers. These officials, who betrayed us, were elected in good faith. They must share the blame for the reckless decisions which have taken our Golden State to the brink of bankruptcy.

They knew they were spending more than was in the coffers, yet that did not stop them from voting themselves raises in salaries and pensions plus untold bonuses and perks like personal cars. When the extent of the deficit became public knowledge, these same lawmakers warned We the People to expect to endure tough and serious cuts. First hurt - who else? - the defenseless, that is the poor, elderly, sick, and handicapped, while those responsible for creating the deficit shortfall are getting off scot-free. Has even one of them displayed any remorse, guilt, or been willing to give up anything personal? They could propose to roll back their raises, but that won’t happen — they rationalize that the law is very clear that they must take their already-voted raises regardless of the state of the economy.

I say, “Bull-pucky! They made the laws, so they have the power to change the laws.” The recourse for We the People now is to use the initiative process while it is still available. Let’s pass a law stating that all salaries and pensions of state and county lawmakers must be voted upon by the people, and no more sneaky hidden perks which chip away at the peoples’ money.

With our dynamite daytime signal covering one-third of California, KSCO ownership will pledge to make available a substantial amount of free air time to any serious organized group of citizens with an aggressive leader willing to pursue this democratic process.

Kudos to our new governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, for being willing to take on an astonishing challenge (and it must be added, we sure could use more state and county leaders with the caliber of a Tom McClintock). And to those irresponsible lawmakers who should be voted out of office, to paraphrase a fitting quote, “Cheat us once, shame on you; cheat us again and again and again, shame on us.”