Very rarely does one find a politician with the moral clarity to provide the blunt and necessary truth about a controversial issue, but that has finally happened. But this is a good news/bad news situation for American taxpayers. The good news is that a politician has proposed to slash both bureaucrat pay and public pensions and publicly stated that, “The state sector is like a fat man of 200kg sitting on the back of a 50kg little man who is the real economy.” The bad news is that this politician is the President of Romania. A caveat is probably appropriate at this stage. I have no idea whether Presdident Basescu actually is a genuine small-government proponent. Perhaps he is just an ordinary politician forced to do the right thing by extraordinary circumstances. Nonetheless, I have a hard time imagining we will see a better quote from an elected official this year. Here’s an excerpt from a story in the Irish Times:
President Traian Basescu said officials had decided…to reduce the pay of state employees by 25 per cent from next month and pensions and unemployment benefits by 15 per cent this year. …He said the cutbacks would also help reinvigorate an economy that is being crushed by a bloated and inefficient state sector, and allow Romania to avoid steep tax hikes that could hamper investment and destroy hopes of a swift recovery from recession. “This plan was inevitable. The state sector is like a fat man of 200kg sitting on the back of a 50kg little man who is the real economy,” said Mr Basescu, who narrowly won re-election at the end of last year. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0508/1224269946823.html
