What's the latest great idea of the esteemed Governor of Massachusetts? Well, it seems that Deval Patrick wants to encourage volunteerism.

So Gov. Deval Patrick encountered a large degree of skepticism this week when he heralded an expanded program allowing executive branch employees to volunteer up to one paid day per month at a variety of nonprofit groups.

All fine and dandy... but why do I, as a taxpayer in this state, have to pay for them to go volunteering and not for them doing their job? Now if they want to volunteer on their own AFTER the work day is over and AFTER I've stopped paying them... that's one thing. But our esteemed Gov seems to believe that it will make me all happy and squishy inside to be shelling out the bucks for them to jaunter off on their own activities.

If I want to give money to a non-profit, I'll give my money myself. But what I want from our government workers is for them to do their job. They already get plenty of time away from their jobs with at least 1 Monday holiday a month (2 in January - if my memory serves). Not to mention their paid vacation time. Tell me which other businesses in this country would run with any sort of efficiency if they closed that often? However, I think Rep. Bradley Jones says it best...

"With all this newfound freedom to take time off, is the work they're doing not going to get done, or if there's not work to do, should we be asking why we need them as employees?"

(How much you want to bet they raise my taxes to give these same people a pay raise next year...)

Posted by: Teresa in Politics at 06:16 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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