@flyinglow: I'm related to someone mentioned in this article, so I have 1st hand (ok, maybe 2nd) knowledge on this topic. Deporting people is harder than the general public thinks. The front line federal employees handling the cases every day aren't the reason there's a revolving door or a huge backlog. They are sometimes handling more than 30-40 (that's not a typo or exaggeration) cases a day. The problem is that there are appeals, then more appeals, then pleas for asylum, and on & on. And if you do manage to deport them, they're back in a month.

Hey, I'm cool with my unpaid days off/4.6% pay cut as a state employee. Let's see how cool the public is when something happens to a child & we're short-staffed. Then it will be: "Why didn't the government/law enforcement DO something to keep these creeps off the streets?!"

All of you who say we're overpaid & don't do anything, enjoy yourselves.

(The governor, when asked about following the proposal of California in raising the sales tax and extending it to services such as fees charged by lawyers or golf courses, said: "We are not California and we do not need to tax everything including the air we breathe.")

Why can't we tax those things, Mr. Gibbons? Because it might tick off the wealthy, perhaps? What's a few extra dollars to someone who can spare the extra money for such activities?

I'm a state employee, and I cannot AFFORD a pay cut, Mr. Gibbons. I'm already making about 30% less than a similar private sector job would pay, but because knowledge worker jobs are hard to come by in this state, and the economy is so bad, it will have to do. While I'm thankful to have it, my job actually COSTS me money, as when things are needed to do my job, the state says "Sorry! No money!", so I either do a crappy job, or I pay for things out of my own pocket (much like school teachers are forced to do to get supplies for their students).

My gas prices were ridiculously high this past summer and I struggled to pay them to put gas in my 10+ year old little Honda just like everyone else in the middle class. My food prices went up too, just like everyone else. The difference between Mr. Gibbons taking a pay cut at $140k+ and the rest of us is that there's not much left to live on after WE cut back! This whole idea that we average state employees are living the high life while everyone else is struggling just isn't true!