Courtesy of Jr. Deputy Accountant
Since he became California’s governor, Jerry Brown has turned into a grouchy Dad. Not that he doesn’t have reason to be pissed off. What with there being no money and all. So, after deciding to cancel about half the cell phones state workers use, Brown started looking at state cars.
The NYT revs up the story:
In another salvo in his battle to tame California’s money problems, Gov. Jerry Brown announced Friday that he would stop any new cars from being purchased by government agencies and order the return of many already used by state employees.
The executive order came just weeks after Mr. Brown laid out a strict austerity budget for California, which is facing a $25.4 billion deficit over the next 18 months.
“There is a lot of wasteful spending on cars that aren’t even driven,” Mr. Brown said. “And we can’t afford to spend taxpayer money on new cars while California faces such a massive deficit.”
Cutting out the new cars and selling another 5,000 or so could save the state $16.5 million, Brown’s office tells the Times. Trimming the number of cell phones may amount to another $20 million annually. It all makes for a good story, but there’s a long way to go to get to $25 billion.
