Do they ever think before they speak...

From The Columbus Dispatch, in response to the Senate’s inclusion in the budget bill of a pay cut for lawmakers:

"I know a lot of people in my caucus who are frankly underpaid," House Speaker William G. Batchelder said yesterday.

Under the budget passed by the Senate this week, pay for the 99 state representatives and half the state senators would be cut 5 percent starting in 2013. Cuts for the other half of the Senate would start in 2015. Base salary for a lawmaker is $60,584 a year. Most earn more through stipends paid to caucus and committee leaders.

Yeah, and I know a lot of teachers who are frankly underpaid. Yet your other big gripe is that the Senate took the merit pay measures out of the budget bill. Mind you, those same provisions are in SB5 and it is, frankly, dishonest to also include them in the budget. Of course, Batchelder et al. know that SB5 has a really good chance of being overturned by the voters so having it in the budget bill is really an end run around the will of the people.

And this from the same group that thinks that public workers (public workers who aren’t lawmakers, that is) are a bunch of leaches, sucking the state dry of all of its money through high salaries and ridiculously attractive benefits packages. Mind you, lawmakers, who are not exactly full-time workers, make more money and have better benefits than your average state worker (and let's not forget all those sweet extras they get from friendly lobbyists). And yet, per Batchelder, lawmakers are paid too little and the rest of us lowly public-sector workers are all paid too much.

Nice ego there, you jackwagon.