P.D. James Blasts BBC

"Bestselling mystery author P.D. James blasted the BBC in a surprising interview with the British broadcasting network. Baroness James blasted the organization for its bloated executive salaries and failure to pay sufficient amounts to writers and producers of programming."

More at The Writer's Blog, http://www.writerswrite.com/blog/104101 .

As you read this all-to-rare attack on government-bureaucrat privilege, think of how widely this could be applied to every level of our own government, especially with the government monopolists all crying poor so loudly and demanding more money: A recent story in the San Francisco Chronicle lists the many police and sheriff's department managers who have retired with breathtaking pensions, in some cases exceeding their already generous working pay.

Fat paychecks, waste, mismanagement, overreaching in every aspect of public life -- yet the only answer ever proposed is: More money.

In an article reporting the general negative reaction to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed state budget, a simple chart illustrates the problem perfectly, yet its implications were not mentioned (or noticed?) by the article writers, or by any of those complaining: If the governor's proposal to cut the budget level next year were enacted, the spending level would be reduced to where it was all the way back in -- 2006.

That famously tight-fisted year in which we starved our noble bureaucrats, as you remember.

The ironclad rule in government budgeting is and has always been this: The budget can *never* go down; it must *always* go up. Always, regardless of any other factor.

Of course, if your ambition is overweening and limitless, your vision of government responsibilities completely open-ended, well of course the government will never have enough money. Because its ambition knows no bounds.

Now if only this elementary insight would dawn on a single political reporter or newspaper editor and affect the reporting on budget battles, we might have a chance at reform.

Not likely.