For a few weeks, we’ve been highlighting some of the efforts of various lawmakers to highlight some of the out and out stupid with Arnold’s furloughs. See, the thing is not the actual furlough policy: he’s already pretty much wrapped up mostly winning that fight in the courts. The problem is that Arnold’s blanket furlough process doesn’t take the actual circumstances on the ground. Sen Ducheny pointed out that when you furlough the tax collectors, we take in less money and there is no net cost savings to the furloughs. Asm. Skinner points out that when you furlough workers that are entirely paid by the federal government, you get no cost savings and end up costing the state federal dollars.

And both of these are all kinds of stupid.  Sen. Feinstein, seeing the problem that Asm. Skinner pointed out, passed along a letter from Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue raising concerns that the furlough policy was delaying payments.

Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue says disability claims are rapidly increasing and furloughs could postpone another $15 million in federal payments – worsening California’s economic problems. …

The governor will review the concerns in the letter, but furloughs need to be applied universally to generate savings, regardless of departments’ funding sources, {Schwarzenegger spokesman} Cameron said. (AP 8/25/09)

Well, today we get the Governor’s response (PDF) to Sen. Feinstein.  It spouts some data showing that the delays are minimal and that California is right around average processing time.  But what it doesn’t address is how exactly furloughing workers.

I get that the workers can schedule their furloughs, and I suppose that is a step in the right direction, but that doesn’t really address the issue that this a) saves us NO money and b) hurts California.

Arnold’s only real defense for the general policy is that we need some kind of consistency across departments. That somehow if some departments avoid the axe we will be worse off, despite all evidence to the contrary.  In other words, he is spending money to shove the heel of his boot into the face of state workers. There will be discipline, and he will make sure of that.  To prevent an unproven and probably unrealistic problem that one department would revolt if other departments get their furloughs reduced or eliminated.

See, but that is what governing is all about. Making policy decisions.  As an elected official you must make decisions on what areas of government will get priority, and what won’t. His blanket furlough system is just lazy governance. Instead of doing the work that would provide the best possible governance for California during the crisis, Arnold thinks it isn’t really worth his time, so, on to the other issues.

It’s great that Sen. Feinstein has chosen to address this issue, but it would also be great if she would keep up the pressure on stupid as we move forward. And California has a few other figures who could speak a little more loudly on the issue as well.